Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the twenty-first chapter of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Come with us as we release one bite a day of one of your favorite classic novels, plays & short stories. Bree reads these classics like she reads to her daughter, one chapter a day. If you love books or audiobooks and want something to listen to as you're getting ready, driving to work, or as you're getting ready for bed, check out Bite at a Time Books!

Follow, rate, and review Bite at a Time Books where we read you your favorite classics, one bite at a time. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Check out our website, or join our Facebook Group!

Get exclusive Behind the Scenes content on our YouTube!

We are now part of the Bite at a Time Books Productions network!

If you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories, what was happening in their lives or the world at the time, check out Bite at a Time Books Behind the Story wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow us on all the socials: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook - TikTok

Follow Bree at: Instagram - Twitter - Facebook

Take a look and a buck and let's see what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter, one fight at a time so many adventures and mountains we can climb.

Take it word for word like line.

One bite at a time my name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

If you want to know what's coming next and vote on upcoming books, sign up for our newsletter at bit at a Timebooks.com.

You'll also find our new t shirts in the shop, including podcast shirts and quote shirts from your favorite classic novels.

Be sure to follow my show on your favorite podcast platform so you get all the new episodes.

You can find most of our links in the show notes, but also our website.

Bite at a Timebooks.com includes all of the links for our show, including to our patreon to support the show, and YouTube, where we have special behind the narration of the episodes.

We're part of the byte at a Time Books Productions network.

If you'd also like to hear what inspired your favorite classic authors to write their novels and what was going on in the world at the time, check out the Bite at a Time Books Behind the Story podcast.

Wherever you listen to podcasts, please note while we try to keep the text as close to the original as possible.

Some words have been changed to honor.

The marginalized communities who've identified the words as harmful and to stay in alignment with Bite at a Time book's brand values.

Today we'll be continuing Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Chapter 21 It was after sunup now, but we went right on and didn't tie up.

The King and the Duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty, but after they jumped overboard and took a swim, it chippered them up a good deal.

After breakfast, the King, he took a seat on the corner of the raft and pulled off his boots, and rolled up his britches, and let his legs dangle in the water so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart.

When he had got it pretty good, him and the Duke begun to practice it together.

The Duke had to learn him over and over again how to say every speech, and he made him sigh and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he'd done it pretty well.

Only he says, you mustn't bellow out Romeo that way, like a bull.

You must say it's soft and sick and languishy.

So Romeo, that's the idea for Juliet's, a dear, sweet, mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass.

Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the Duke made out of oak laughs and began to practice the sword fight.

The Duke called himself Richard III, and the way they laid on and pranced around the raft was grand to see.

But by and by the King tripped and fell overboard, and after that they took a rest and had to talk about all kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river.

After dinner, the Duke says, well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first class show, you know?

So I guess we'll add a little more to it.

We want a little something to answer encores with, anyway.

Let's encores bilgewater, the Duke told him, and then says I'll answer by doing The Highland Fling or The Sailor's Hornpipe.

And you well, let me see.

Oh, I've got it.

You can do Hamlet soliloquy.

Hamlet's.

Witch Hamlet soliloquy you know the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare?

It's sublime.

Sublime.

Always fetches the house.

I haven't got it in the book.

I've only got one volume, but I reckon I can piece it out from memory.

I'll just walk up and down a minute and see if I can call it back from recollections vaults.

So he went marching up and down, thinking and frowning horrible every now and then.

Then he would hoist up his eyebrows.

Next he would squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan.

Next he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear.

It was beautiful to see him by and by he got it.

He told us to give attention.

Then he strikes a most noble attitude with one leg shoved forwards and his arms stretched away up and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky.

And then he begins to rip and rave and grit its teeth.

And after that, all through his speech he howled and spread around and swelled up his chest and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before.

This is the speech.

I learned it easy enough while he was learning it to the king.

To be, or not to be that is the bear bodkin that makes calamity of so long life.

For who would fardles bear till Burnham would do come to Dunnis nain but that the fear of something after death murders the innocent sleep great nature second course and makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune than to fly to others that we know not of.

There's the respect must give us pause.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking.

I would thou couldst.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contamina, the laws delay in the quietest which he pangs might take in the dead waste in middle of the night when churchyards yawn in customary suits of solemn black but that the undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns, breathes forth, contagion on the world.

And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat in the Adage, is sickly door with care and all the clouds that lower door are housetops with disregard their currents.

Turn awry and lose the name of action.

Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But soft you the pherophilia oak, not thy ponderous and marble jaws, but get thee to a nunnery.

Go.

Well, the old man, he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he could do it first rate.

It seemed like he was just born for it.

And when he had his hand in, he was excited.

It was perfectly lovely the way he would rip and tear and rare up behind when he was getting it off.

The first chance we got, the Duke had some show bills printed, and after that, for two or three days as we floated along the raft, was a most uncommon lively place, for there weren't nothing but sword fighting and rehearsing, as the Duke called it, going on all the time.

One morning, when we was pretty well down the state of Arkansas, we come inside of a little one horse town in a big bend.

So we tied up about three quarters of a mile above it in the mouth of a crick, which was shut in like a tunnel by the cypress trees.

And all of us but Jim took the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that place for our show.

We struck it mighty lucky.

There was going to be a circus there that afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in in all kinds of old shackly, wagons and on horses.

The circus would leave before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance.

The Duke, he hired the courthouse, and we went around and stuck up our bills.

They read like this shakespearean revival.

Wonderful attraction for one night only.

The world renowned tragedy ins David Garrick, the younger of Jury Lane Theater, London, and Edmund Keane, the elder of the Royal Haymarket Theater, whitechapel Putting Lane, Piccadilly, London and the Royal Continental Theaters in their sublime Shakespearean spectacle entitled the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo.

Mr.

Garrick.

Juliet.

Mr.

Keane.

Assisted by the whole strength of the company.

New costumes, new scenery, new appointments.

Also the thrilling masterly and blood curdling broadsword conflict in Richard III.

Richard III.

Mr.

Garak.

Richmond.

Mr.

Keane.

Also by special request hamlet's.

Immortal soliloquy by the illustrious Keane, done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris for one night only on account of imperative European engagements.

Admission, $0.25, children and servants, $0.10.

Then we went loafing around the town.

The stores and houses was most all old shackly, dried up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted.

They were set up three or four foot above ground on stilts so as to be out of reach of the water when the river was overflowed.

The houses had little gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in them but gymson weeds and sunflowers and ash piles and old curled up boots and shoes and pieces of bottles and rags and played out tinware.

The fences was made of different kinds of boards nailed on at different times, and they leaned every which way and had gates that didn't generally have but one hinge, a leather one.

Some of the fences had been whitewashed some time or another, but the Duke said it was in Columbus's, time like enough.

There was generally hogs in the garden and people driving them out.

All the stores was along one street.

They had white domestic awnings in front, and the country people hitch their horses to the awning posts.

There was empty dry goods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives and chawing tobacco and gapping and yawning and stretching a mighty ornery lot.

They generally had on yellow straw hats, most as wide as an umbrella, but didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats.

They called one another Bill and Buck and Hank and Joe and Andy and talked lazy and drawly and used considerable many cuss words.

There was as many as one loafer leaning up against every awning post, and he most always had his hands in his Britch's pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a cha or tobacco or scratch what a body was hearing amongst them all the time was, Give me a chaw.

Tobacco, hank canned.

I ain't got but one chaw left.

Ask Bill.

Maybe bill, he gives him a chaw.

Maybe he lies and says he ain't got none.

Some of them kinds of loafers never has a scent in the world, nor a chaw of tobacco of his own.

They get all their chawing by borrowing.

They say to a fellow, I wished you'd lend me a chaw, Jack.

I just this minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had, which is a lie pretty much every time.

It don't fool nobody but a stranger, but Jack ain't no stranger.

So he says you give him a chaw, did you?

So did your sister's cat's grandmother.

You pay me back the chaws you've already borrowing off me lafe buck nerd.

Then I'll loan you one or two ton of it and won't charge you no back interest another.

Well, I did pay you back some of it once.

Yes, you did.

About six chaws.

You borrowed store tobacco and paid back Servant head.

Store tobacco is a flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws.

The natural leaf twisted when they borrow a chaw.

They don't generally cut it off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth and gnaw with their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in two.

Then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it when it's handed back and says sarcastic, here, gimme the chaw, and you take the plug.

All the streets and lanes was just mud.

They weren't nothing else but mud.

Mud is black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places and two or three inches deep in all the places.

The hogs loafed and grunted around.

Everywheres you see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come lazying along the street and wallop herself right down in the way.

Or folks had to walk around her and she'd stretch out and shut her eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her and look as happy as if she was on salary.

And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer sing out, hi, so boy.

Sick him tigger.

And away the sow would go squealing most horrible with a dog or two swinging to each ear and three or four dozen more coming.

And then you would see all the loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight and laugh at the fun and look grateful for the noise.

Then they'd settle back again till there was a dog fight.

There couldn't anything wake them up all over and make them happy all over like a dog fight unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death on the riverfront.

Some of the houses was sticking out over the bank and they was bowed and bent and about ready to tumble in.

The people had moved out of them.

The bank was caved away under one corner of some others and that corner was hanging over.

People lived in them yet, but it was dangerous, um, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house caves in at a time.

Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the river one summer.

Such a town as that has to be always moving back and back and back because the river's always gnawing at it.

The nearer it got to noon that day, the thicker and thicker was the wagons and horses in the streets and more coming all the time.

Families fetch their dinners with them from the country and eat them in the wagons.

There was considerable whiskey drinking going on and I seen three fights buy and buy.

Somebody sings out, here comes old Bogs and from the country for his little old monthly drunk.

Here he comes, boys.

All the loafers looked glad.

I reckoned they was used to having fun out of Bogs.

One of them says, wonder who he's going to chop this time.

If he'd have chopped up all the men he's been a going to chop in the last 20 year he'd have considerable reputation now.

Another one says, I wished old Boggs had threatened me because then I'd know I weren't going to die for a thousand year.

Boggs comes a tearing along on his horse whooping and yelling like an engine and singing out clear the track, thar I'm on the war path and the price of coffins is a going to raise.

He was drunk and weaving about in his saddle.

He was over 50 year old and had a very red face.

Everybody yelled at him and laughed at him and sassed him.

And he sassed back and said he'd attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns.

But he couldn't wait now because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburne.

And his motto was meat first and spoon vittles to top off on.

He see me and rode up and says, where'd you come from, boy?

You prepared to die?

Then he rode on.

I was scared.

But a man says he don't mean nothing.

He's always carrying on like that when he's drunk.

He's the best naturedist old fool in Arkansas.

Never hurt nobody drunk nor sober.

Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town and bent his head down so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells, come out here, Sherburne.

Come out and meet the man.

You've swindled.

You're the hound I'm after and I'm going to have you too.

And so he went on, calling Sherburne everything he could lay his tongue to in the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and going on by and by.

A proud looking man, about 55, and he was a heap the best dressed man in that town, too.

Steps out of the store and the crowd drops back on each side to let him come.

He says to Boggs, mighty calm and slow, he says, I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till 01:00.

Till 01:00, mind.

No longer.

If you open your mouth against me only once after that time you can't travel so far, but I will find you.

Then he turns and goes in.

The crowd looked mighty sober.

Nobody stirred and there weren't no more laughing.

Boggs rode off, black, guarding Sherburne as loud as he could yell all down the street.

And pretty soon backy comes and stops before the store still keeping it up.

Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, but he wouldn't.

They told him it would be 01:00 in about 15 minutes, so he must go home.

He must go right away.

But it didn't do no good.

He cussed away with all its might and throwed his hat down in the mud and rode over it.

And pretty soon away he went, a raging down the street again with his gray hair of flying.

Everybody that could get a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they could lock him up and get him sober.

But it weren't no use.

Up the street he would tear again and give Sherburne another cussing.

By and by.

Somebody says, go for his daughter.

Quick, go for his daughter.

Sometimes I'll listen to her.

If anybody can persuade him, she can.

So somebody started on a run.

He walked down streetaways and stopped.

In about five or ten minutes, here comes Boggs again, but not on his horse.

He was reeling across the street towards me bareheaded, with a friend on both sides of him, a halt of his arms and hurrying him along.

He was quiet and looking uneasy and he weren't hanging back any but was doing some of the hurrying himself.

Somebody sings out bogs.

I looked over there to see who said it and it was that Colonel Sherburne.

He was standing perfectly still in the street and had a pistol raised in his right hand not aiming it, but holding it out with the barrel tilted up towards the sky.

The same second, I see a young girl coming on the run and two men with her.

Boggs and the men turned round to see who called him.

And when they see the pistol, the men jumped to one side and the pistol barrel come down slow and steady to a level, both barrels cocked.

Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, oh, Lord, don't shoot.

Bang.

Goes the first shot and he staggers back, clawing at the air.

Bang.

Goes the second one and he tumbles backwards onto the ground heavy and solid, with his arms spread out.

That young girl screamed out and comes rushing and down.

She throws herself on her father, crying and saying, oh, he's killed him.

He's killed him.

The crowd closed up around them and shouldered and jammed one another with their neck stretched, trying to see and people on the inside trying to shove them back and shouting back, back, give him air.

Give him air.

Colonel Sherburney tossed his pistol onto the ground and turned around on his heels and walked off.

They took Bogs to a little drugstore, the crowd pressing around just the same and the whole town following.

And I rushed and got a good place at the window where I was close to him and could see in.

They laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head and opened another one and spread it on his breast.

But they tore open his shirt first and I seen where one of the bullets went in.

He made about a dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his breath and letting it down again when he breathed it out.

And after that he laid still.

He was dead.

Then they pulled his daughter away from him, screaming and crying, and took her off.

She was about 16 and very sweet and gentle looking but awful pale and scared.

Well, pretty soon the whole town was there squirming and scrouging and pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look.

But people that had the places wouldn't give them up and folks behind them were saying all the time, say, now you've looked enough.

You fellows taint right and taint fair for you to stay there all the time and never give nobody a chance.

Other folks has their rights as well as you.

There was considerable drawing back, so I slid out thinking maybe there was going to be trouble.

The streets was full and everybody was excited.

Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened.

And there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows stretching their necks and listening.

One long, lanky man with long hair and a big white fur stove pipe hat on the back of his head and a crooked handled cane that marked out the places on the ground where Boggs stood and where sherburne stood.

And the people following him around from one place to the other and watching everything he'd done and bobbing their heads to show they understood and stooping a little and resting their hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his cane.

And then he stood up straight and stiff where sherburne had stood, frowning and having his hat brimmed down over his eyes and sung out Bogs.

And then fetched his cane down slow to a level and says, Bang.

Staggered backwards, says bang again.

And fell down flat on his back.

The people that had seen the thing said, he'd done it perfect.

Said it was just exactly the way it all happened.

Then as much as a dozen people got out their bottles and treated him well.

By and by.

Somebody said, Sherber not to be lynched in about a minute.

Everybody was saying it, so away they went, mad and yelling and snatching down every clothesline they come to do the hanging with.

Thank you for joining Bite at a Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for.

The next bite of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter at Bite at a Timebooks.com and check out the shop.

You can check out the show notes or our website, Bite at a Timebooks.com, for the rest of the links for our show, we'd love to hear from you on social media as well.

Take a look in the Broken.

Let's see what we can find.

Take a chapter by chapter, one at a time.

So many at chairs and mountains we can climb.

Take your word forward, line by line, one bite at a time.