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

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

Chapter Eleven come in, says the woman, and I did.

She says, Take a cheer, I'd done it.

She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes and says what might your name be?

Sarah Williams.

Whereabouts do you live in this neighborhood?

No, I'm in Hookerville, seven mile below.

I've walked all the way and I'm all tired out.

Hungry too, I reckon.

I'll find you something.

No, I ain't hungry.

I was so hungry I had to stop 2 miles below here at a farm.

So I ain't hungry no more.

It's what makes me so late.

My mother's down sick and out of money and everything, and I come to tell my uncle, Abner Moore.

He lives at the upper end of the town.

She says, I ain't ever been here before.

Do you know him?

No, but I don't know everybody yet.

I haven't lived here quite two weeks.

It's a considerable waste to the upper end of the town.

You better stay here all night.

Take off your bonnet.

No, I says, I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on.

I ain't a feared of the dark.

She said.

She wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in by and by, maybe in an hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me.

Then she got to talking about her husband and about her relations up the river and her relations down the river and about how much better off they used to was and how they didn't know.

But they'd made a mistake coming to our town instead of letting well alone, and so on and so on, till I was a feared I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what was going on in the town.

But by and by, she dropped onto PAP in the murder.

And then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along.

She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the $6,000, only she got it ten and all about PAP and what a hard lot he was and what a hard lot I was.

And at last she got down to where I was murdered.

I says, who done it?

We've heard considerable about these goings on down in Hookerville, but we don't know who twas that killed Huck Finn.

Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people here that I'd like to know who killed him.

Some think old Finn done it himself.

No.

Is that so?

Most everybody thought it at first.

He'll never know how nigh he come to getting lynched.

But before night, they changed around and judged it was done by a runaway servant named Jim.

Why, he I stopped.

I reckoned I better keep still.

She ran on and never noticed I had put in at all.

The servant run off the very night Huck Finn was killed.

So there's a reward out for him, $300.

And there's a reward out for old Finn, too.

$200, you see, he come to town the morning after the murder and told about it and was out with him on the ferry boat hunt.

And right away after he up and left before night, they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see.

Well, next day they found out the servant was gone.

They found out he hadn't been seen since 10:00 the night the murder was done.

So then they put it on him, you see.

And while they was full of it, next day that comes old Finn and went boo hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the servant all over Illinois with.

The judge gave him some.

And that evening he got drunk and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hard looking strangers and then went off with them.

Well, he ain't come back since.

And they ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it.

And then he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit.

People do say he weren't any too good to do it.

Oh, he's sly.

I reckon if he don't come back for a year, he'll be all right.

You can't prove anything on him, you know everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in hawk's money as easy as nothing.

Yes, I reckon so.

Him, I don't see nothing in the way of it.

Has everybody quit thinking the servant done it?

Oh, no, not everybody.

A good many thinks he'd done it, but they'll get the servant pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him.

Why are they after him yet?

Well, you're innocent, ain't you?

The $300 lay around every day for people to pick up.

Some folks think the servant ain't far from here.

I'm one of them, but I ain't talked it around.

A few days ago, I was talking with an old couple that lived next door in the log shanty.

They happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they called Jackson's Island.

Don't anybody live there, says I.

No, nobody, says they.

I didn't say anymore, but I'd done some thinking.

I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there about the head of the island a day or two before that.

So I says to myself like, is not that servant's hiding over there?

Anyway, says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt.

I ain't seen any smoke since, so I reckon maybe he's gone if it was him.

But husband's going over to sea him and another man.

He was gone up the river, but he got back today, and I told him as soon as he got here 2 hours ago, I'd got so uneasy I couldn't set.

Still, I had to do something with my hands.

So I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading it.

My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it when the woman stopped talking.

I looked up and she was looking at me pretty curious and smiling a little.

I put down the needle and thread and let on to be interested, and I was, too, and says $300 is a power of money.

I wish my mother could get it.

Is your husband going over there tonight?

Oh, yes.

He went up town with the man I was telling you of to get a boat and see if they could borrow another gun.

They'll go over after midnight.

Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?

Yes, and couldn't the servant see better, too?

After midnight, he'll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hun up his campfire.

All the better for the dark if he's got one.

I didn't think of that.

The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit comfortable.

Pretty soon she says, what did you say your name was, honey?

Mary Williams.

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't look up.

Seemed to me I said it was Sarah so I felt sort of cornered and was a feared maybe I was looking at, too.

I wished the woman would say something more.

The longer she sat still, the uneasier I was.

But now she says, Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in.

Oh, yes.

And I did.

Sarah Mary Williams.

Sarah's my first name.

Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary.

Oh, that's the way of it.

Yes.

I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there anyway.

I couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to thinking about how hard times was and how poor they had to live and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place and so forth and so on.

And then I got easy again.

She was right about the rats.

You see.

One stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while.

She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone or they wouldn't give her no peace.

She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot and said she was a good shot with it generally, but she'd wretched her arm a day or two ago and didn't know whether she could throw true now, but she watched for a chance and directly banged away at a rat.

But she missed him wide and said, Ouch.

It hurt her arm.

So then she told me to try for the next one.

I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on.

I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive.

And if he'd have stayed where he was, he'd have been a tolerable sick rat.

She said that was first rate and she reckoned I would hive the next one.

She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with.

I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them and went on talking about her and her husband's matters.

But she broke off to say, Keep your eye on the rats.

You better have the lead in your lap handy.

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment and I clapped my legs together on it.

And she went on talking, but only about a minute.

Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face and very pleasant and says, Come now.

What's your real name?

What, Mum?

What's your real name?

Is it Bill or Tom or Bob or what is it?

I reckon I shook like a leaf and I didn't know hardly what to do.

But I says, Please, to, don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum, if I'm in the way here, I'll know you won't set down and stay where you are.

I ain't going to hurt you and I ain't going to tell on you another.

You just tell me your secret and trust me, I'll keep it.

And what's more, I'll help you so my old man if you want him to.

You see, you're a runaway apprentice, that's all.

It ain't anything.

There ain't no harm in it.

You've been treated bad and you made up your mind to cut.

Bless you, child.

I wouldn't tell on you.

Tell me all about it.

Now, that's a good boy.

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything.

But she mustn't go back on her promise.

Then I told her my father and mother was dead and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country, 30 miles back from the river.

And he treated me so bad, I couldn't stand it no longer.

He went away to be gone a couple of days.

And so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out.

And I'd been three nights coming.

The 30 miles I traveled nights and hid daytimes and slept.

And the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way.

And I had aplenty.

I said I believed my uncle, Abner Moore, would take care of me.

And so that was why I struck out for this town of Gaussian.

Gaussian?

Child.

This ain't gaussian.

This is St.

Petersburg.

Gaussian's, ten mile further up the river.

Who told you this was Gaussian?

Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep, he told me when the roads forked, I must take the right hand and Five Mile would fetch me to Gaussian.

He was drunk.

I reckon he told you just exactly wrong.

Well, he did act like he was drunk.

But it ain't no matter now.

I got to be moving along.

I'll fetch Gaussian before daylight.

Hold on a minute.

I'll put you up a snack to eat.

You might want it.

So she put me up a snack and says, say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first?

Answer up prompt now.

Don't stop to study over it.

Which end gets up first?

The hind end, Mum.

Well, then a horse.

The forward end mum.

Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?

North side.

If 15 cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction?

The whole 15, mum.

Well, I reckon you have lived in the country.

I thought maybe you was trying to hocus me again.

What's your real name now?

George Peters, Mum.

Well, try to remember it, George.

Don't forget and tell me it's Alexander before you go.

And then get out by saying it's.

George Alexander, when I catch you and don't go about women in that old calico you do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men maybe.

Bless you, child.

When you set out to thread a needle, don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it.

Hold the needle still and poke the thread at it.

That's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does the other way.

And when you throw at a rat or anything, hit yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can.

And miss your rat about six or seven foot throw, stiff armed from the shoulder like there was a pivot there for it to turn on like a girl.

Not from the wrist and elbow with your arm out to one side like a boy.

And mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap, she throws her knees apart.

She don't clap them together the way you did when you catch the lump of lead.

Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle and I contrived the other things just to make certain.

Now trot along to your Uncle Sarah Mary Williams.

George Alexander Peters.

And if you get into trouble, you send word to Mrs.

Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you out of it.

Keep the river road all the way, and next time you tramp, take shoes and socks with you.

The river road's a rocky one and your feet will be in a condition when you get to Gaushen, I reckon.

I went up the bank about 50 yards and then I doubled on my tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was a good piece below the house.

I jumped in and was off in a hurry.

I went upstream far enough to make the head of the island, and then I started across.

I took off the sun bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on.

Then when I was about the middle, I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens the sound come faint over the water, but clear eleven when I struck the head of the island.

I never waited to blow, though I was most winded.

But I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be and started a good fire there on a high and dry spot.

Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place mile and a half below.

As hard as I could, I landed and slopped through the timber and up the ridge and into the cavern.

There Jim laid sound asleep on the ground.

I roused him out and says, get up and hump yourself, Jim.

There ain't a minute to lose.

They're after us.

Jim never asked no questions.

He never said a word.

But the way he worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared.

By that time, everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid.

We put out the campfire at the cavern the first thing and didn't show a candle outside after that.

I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece and took a look, but if there was a boat around, I couldn't see it.

For stars and shadows ain't good to see.

By then we got out the raft and slipped along down in the shade past the foot of the island, dead, still never saying a word.

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.

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Take on the the broken.

Let's see what we can find.

Take a chapter by chapter, one at a time.

So many adventures and mountains we can climb.