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

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

Chapter 13 while I catched my breath and most feigned shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that.

But it weren't no time to be sentimentoring.

We'd got to find that boat now.

Had to have it for ourselves.

So we went acquaking and shaking down the stabbard side and slow work it was too.

Seemed a week before we got to the stern, no sign of a boat.

Jim said he didn't believe he could go any further.

So scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said.

But I said, Come on, if we get left on this wreck, we're in a fix.

Sure.

So on we prowled again.

We struck for the stern of the Texas and found it and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shudder to shutter.

For the edge of the skylight was in the water.

When we got pretty close to the Crosshall door, there was the skiff.

Sure enough, I could just barely see her.

I felt ever so thankful.

In another second I would have been aboard of her.

But just then the door opened.

One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone.

But he jerked it in again and says he of that blame lantern out of sight.

Bill, he flung a bag of something into the boat and then got in himself and sat down.

It was Packard.

Then Bill, he come out and got in.

Packard says in a low voice already, Shove off.

I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak.

But Bill says hold on.

You go through him?

No.

Didn't you?

No.

So he's got his share of the cash yet.

Well, then come along.

No.

Used to take truck and leave money.

Say, won't he be suspicious what we're up to?

Maybe he won't, but we got to have it anyway.

Come along.

So they got out and went in.

The door slammed too, because it was on the careen side.

And in a half second I was in the boat and Jim come tumbling after me.

I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went.

We didn't touch an oar and we didn't speak nor whisper nor hardly even breathe.

We went gliding swift along, dead silent past the tip of the paddle box and past the stern.

Then, in a second or two more, we was 100 yards below the wreck and the darkness soared her up every last sign of her and we was safe.

And note it.

When we was three or 400 yards downstream we see the lanterns show like a little spark at the Texas door for a second.

And we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was then.

Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft.

Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men.

I reckoned I hadn't had time to before.

I begun to think how dreadful it was even for murderers to be in such a fix.

I says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet.

And then how would I like it?

So says I to Jim, the first light we see will land 100 yards below it or above it in a place where it's a good hiding place for you in the skiff.

And then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape so they can be hung when their time comes.

But that idea was a failure.

For pretty soon it begun to storm again and this time worse than ever.

The rain poured down and never a light showed.

Everybody in bed, I reckon.

We boomed along down the river watching for lights and watching for our raft.

After a long time, the rain let up, but the clouds stayed and the lightning kept whimpering and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead floating.

And we made for it.

It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again.

We seen a light now away to the right on shore, so I said I would go for it.

The skiff was half full of plunder, which that gang had stole there on the wreck.

We hustled it onto the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down and show a light.

When he judged, he'd gone about two mile and keep it burning till I come.

Then I manned my oars and shoved for the light.

As I got down towards it, three or four more showed up on a hillside.

It was a village.

I closed in above the shore light and laid on my oars and floated as I went by.

I see it was a lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double hole ferry boat.

I skimmed around for the watchman, wondering whereabouts he slept, and by and by I found him roosting on the bits forward with his head down between his knees.

I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves and begun to cry.

He stirred up in a kind of a startleish way, but when he see it was only me, he took a good gap in stretch.

And then he says hello, what's up?

Don't cry, Bub.

What's the trouble?

I says.

PAP and Ma'am insist, and then I broke down.

He says, oh, dang it.

Now, don't take on so.

We all have to have our troubles and this and will come out all right.

What's the matter with them there?

Are you the watchman of the boat?

Yes, he says.

Kind of pretty well satisfied like.

I'm the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman in head deck hand, and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers.

I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame generous and good to Tom, D*** and Harry as what he is and slam around money the way he does.

But I've told him many a time that I wouldn't trade places with him for.

Says I a sailor's life for me and I'm durned if I'd live two mile out of town where there ain't nothing ever going on, not for all his belundics, and is much more on top of it, says I.

I broke in and says they're in an awful peck of trouble.

And who is?

Why PAP and Ma'am insist.

And Miss Hooker.

And if you'd take your ferry boat and go up there.

Up where?

Where are they?

On the wreck.

What wreck?

Why, there ain't but one.

What?

You don't mean the Walter Scott?

Yes, good and land.

What are they doing there, for gracious sakes?

Well, they didn't go there a purpose.

I bet they didn't.

Why, great goodness.

There ain't no chance for him if they don't get off mighty quick.

Why, how in the nation did they ever get into such a scrape?

Easy enough.

Miss Hooker was a visiting up there to the town?

Yes, booth flanding.

Go on.

She was a visiting there at Booth Flanding.

And just in the edge of the evening, she started over with her servant woman in the horse ferry to stay all night at her friend's house.

Miss what you may call her I disremember her name.

And they lost their steering ore and swung around and went to floating down Stern first about two mile.

And saddle bagged on the wreck and the fairy man and the servant woman and the horses was all lost.

But Miss Hooker, she made a grab and got aboard the wreck.

Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our trading scow and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till he was right on it.

And so we saddlebagged.

But all of us was saved but Bill Whipple, and oh, he was the best creature.

I most wish it had been me.

I do.

My George is the beatenest thing I ever struck.

And then what did you all do?

Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there, we couldn't make nobody here.

So PAP said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow.

I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it.

And Miss Hooker said if I didn't strike help sooner come here and hunt up her uncle and he'd fix the thing.

I made the land about a mile below and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do something.

But they said, what in such a night in such a current, there ain't no sense in it.

Go for the steam ferry now, if you'll go and buy Jackson.

I'd like to and blame it.

I don't know, but I will.

But who in the dignitations are going to pay for it, do you reckon?

Your PAP.

Why?

That's all right, Ms.

Hooker.

She told me particular that her uncle Hornback great guns.

Is he her uncle?

Looky here.

You break for that light over yonder way and turn out west when you get there and about a quarter of a mile out, you'll come to the tavern.

Tell him to dart you out to Jim Hornbacks and he'll foot the bill.

And don't you fool around any, because he'll want to know the news.

Tell him I'll have his niece all safe before he can get to town.

Hump yourself.

Now, I'm going around the corner here to roust out my engineer.

I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned to the corner, I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her out.

And then pulled up shore in the easy water about 600 yards and tucked myself in among some wood boats.

For I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferry boat start but take it all around.

I was feeling rather comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang for not many would have done it.

I wish the Widow knowed about it.

I judge she would be proud of me for helping these rapscaleans, because rapscaleans and deadbeats is the kind the Widow and the good people takes the most interest in.

Well, before long, here comes the wreck.

Dim and dusky sliding along down.

A kind of cold shiver went through me and then I struck out for her.

She was very deep and I see in a minute there weren't much chance for anybody being alive in her.

I pulled around her and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer.

All dead.

Still, I felt a little bit heavy hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it, I could.

Then here comes the ferry boat.

So I shoved for the middle of the river on a long downstream slant, and when I judged I was out of eye reach, I laid on my oars and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her Uncle Hornback would want them.

And then pretty soon the ferry boat give it up and went for the shore.

And I laid into my work and went to booming down the river.

It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's Light showed up, and when it did show, it looked like it was a thousand mile off.

By the time I got there, the sky was beginning to go a little gray in the east, so we struck for an island and hid the raft and sunk the skiff and turned in and slept like dead people.

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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So many adventures and mountains we can climb.

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