Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the fifth chapter of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

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

Chapter Five I had shut the door too.

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 mistaken.

That 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 weren't scared of him worth bothering about.

He was most 50 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 weren't no color in his face where his face showed it was white.

Not like another man's white, but a.

White to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl.

A tree toed white, a fish belly white.

As for his clothes, just drags.

That was all.

He had one ankle resting on the other 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 floor, an old black slouch with the top caved in like a lid I stood a looking at him.

He sat there looking at me with his chair tilted back a little.

I set the candle down.

I noticed the window was up, so he had to come in by the shed.

He kept looking me all over, by and by.

He says, starchy clothes very you think you're a good deal of a big bug, don't you?

Maybe I am, maybe I ain't.

I says.

Don't you give me none of your lip, says he.

You've put on considerable many frills since I've been away.

I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you.

You're educated, too, they say.

Can read and write.

You think you're better than your father, now, don't you?

Because he can't.

I'll take it out of you.

Who told you you might meddle with.

Such high pollutant foolishness?

Hay.

Who told you you could?

The widow.

She told me.

The widow hay.

And who told the widow she could.

Put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business.

Nobody never told her.

Well, I'll learn her how to meddle.

And looky here, you drop that school, you hear?

I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on heirs over his.

Own father and let on to be.

Better in what he is.

You let me catch you fooling around that school again, you hear?

Your mother couldn't read and she couldn't write another before she died.

None of the family couldn't before they died.

I can't.

And here you're swelling yourself up like this.

I ain't the man to stand it here.

Say, let me hear you read.

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington in the wars.

When I'd read about half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house.

He says, It's so you can do it.

I had my doubts when you told me no.

Looky here, you stop that putting on frills.

I won't have it.

I'll lay for you my smarty and if I catch you about that school, I'll tan you good first.

You know, you'll get religion too.

I never see such a son.

He took up a little blue and yellow picture of some cows and dubois.

And says, what's this?

It's something they give me for learning my lessons good.

He tore it up and says, I'll.

Give you something better.

I'll give you a cow hide.

He sat there mumbling and a growling a minute.

And then he says ain't you a sweet scented dandy though?

A bed and bed clothes and a looking glass and a piece of carpet on the floor.

And your own father got asleep with the hogs in the tanyard.

I never see such a son.

I bet I'll take some of these frills out of you before I'm done with you.

Why, there ain't no end to your heirs.

They say you're rich.

Hey, how's that?

They lie.

That's how.

Looky here, mind you how you talk to me.

I'm standing about all I can stand now, so don't give me no sass.

I've been in town two days and I hadn't heard nothing about you being rich.

I heard about it away down the river, too.

That's why I come.

You get me that money tomorrow.

I want it.

I ain't got no money.

It's a lie.

Judge Thatcher's got it.

You get it.

I want it.

I ain't got no money, I tell you.

You ask Judge Thatcher.

He'll tell you the same.

All right, I'll ask him.

And I'll make him pungled, too, or I'll know the reason why.

Say, how much you got in your pocket?

I want it.

I ain't got only a dollar and.

I want that, too.

It don't make no difference what you want it for.

You just shell it out.

He took it and bid it to see if it was good.

And then he said he was going downtown to get some whiskey.

Said he hadn't had a drink all day.

When he'd 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 didn't drop that.

Next day he was drunk and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bully ragged him and tried to make him give up the money, but he couldn't.

And then he swore he'd make the law force him a 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 didn't know the old man.

So he said courts mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it.

Said he'd rather 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 couldn't rest.

He said he'd cowhide me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him.

I borrowed $3 from Judge Thatcher and PAP took it and got drunk and went to 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 jailed 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 he'd make it warm for him when he got out.

The new judge said he was 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 he'd been a fool and fold away his life.

But now he was going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't 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 he'd 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 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, look at it, gentlemen and ladies all, take a hold of it.

Shake it.

There's a hand that was the hand of a hog, but it ain't so no more.

It's the hand of a man that.

Started in on a new life and.

I'll die before he'll go back.

You mark them words.

Don't forget I said them.

It's a clean hand.

Now shake it.

Don't be afeared.

So they shook it, one after the other all around, and cried.

The judge's wife, she kissed it.

Then the old man signed a pledge, made 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 a spare room.

And in the night sometime, he got powerful thirsty and clum out onto the porch roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of 40 rod and clumbed back up 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 sunup.

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 didn't know no other way.

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.

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