Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the thirty-three chapter of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

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

Chapter 33 so I started for town in the wagon and when I was halfway I see a wagon coming and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer.

And I stopped and waited till he come along.

I says hold on.

And it stopped alongside and his mouth opened up like a trunk and stayed so.

And he swallowed two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat.

And then says, I ain't ever done you no harm, you know that?

What you want to come back and haunt me for?

I says, I ain't come back.

I ain't been gone.

When he heard my voice, it rided him up some, but he weren't quite satisfied yet.

He says, don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you.

Honest engine.

Now you ain't a ghost.

Honest engine.

I ain't.

I says, well, I well, that ought to settle it, of course, but I can't somehow seem to understand it no way.

Looky here, weren't you ever murdered at all?

No, I weren't ever murdered at all.

I played it on them.

You come in here and feel of me, and if you don't believe me so he'd done it and it satisfied him.

And he was that glad to see me again, he didn't know what to do.

And he wanted to know all about it right off because it was a grand adventure and mysterious and so it hid him where he lived.

But I said, Leave it alone till by and by and told his driver to wait.

And we drove off a little piece and I told him the kind of a fix I was in.

And what did he reckon we better do?

He said, Let him alone a minute and don't disturb him.

So he thought and thought, and pretty soon he says, it's all right, I've got it.

Take my trunk in your wagon and let on his yawn.

And you turn back and fool along slow so as to get the house about the time you ought to.

And I'll go towards town apiece and take a fresh start and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you.

And you needn't let on to know me at first.

I says, all right, but wait a minute.

There's one more thing.

A thing that nobody don't know but me.

And that is there's a servant here that I'm trying to steal out of slavery.

And his name is Jim.

Old Miss Watson's.

Jim?

He says, what?

Why, Jim is he stopped and went to studying.

I says, I know what you'll say.

You'll say it's dirty, low down business.

But what if it is?

I'm low down and I'm going to steal him.

And I want you to keep mum and not let on, will you?

His eye lit up and he says, I'll help you steal him.

Will I let go all holtz then, like I was shot.

It was the most astonishing speech I ever heard and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer felt considerable in my estimation.

Only I couldn't believe it.

Tom Sawyer.

A servant stealer.

Oh, shocks.

I says, you're joking.

I ain't joking, either.

Well, then I says, joking or no joking, if you hear anything said about a runaway servant don't forget to remember that you don't know nothing about him and I don't know nothing about him.

Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon and he drove off his way and I drove mine.

But, of course, I forgot all about driving slow on accounts of being glad and full of thinking.

So I got home a heap too quick for that length of a trip.

The old gentleman was at the door and he says why, this is wonderful.

Whoever would have thought it was that mare to do it?

I wish we'd have timed her.

And she ain't sweated a hair.

Not a hair.

It's wonderful.

Why, wouldn't take $100 for that horse now?

I wouldn't, honest.

And yet I'd have sold her for 15 before and thought was all she was worth.

That's all he said.

He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.

But it weren't surprising, because he weren't only just a farmer.

He was a preacher too, and had a little one horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching.

And it was worth it, too.

There was plenty other farmer preachers like that and done the same way down south.

In about half an hour, Tom's wagon drove up to the front still, and Aunt Sally, she see it through the window because it was only about 50 yards, and says, why, there's somebody come.

I wonder who it is.

Why, I do believe it's a stranger.

Jimmy, that's one of the children run and tell lies to put on another plate for dinner.

Everybody made a rush for the front door because, of course, a stranger don't come every year, and so he lays over the yellow fever for interest when he does come.

Tom was over the still and starting for the house.

The wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we was all bunched in the front door.

Tom had his store clothes on in an audience, and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer in them circumstances.

It weren't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was suitable.

He weren't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep.

No, he come calm and important like the ram.

When he got in front of us, he lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it.

And he didn't want to disturb them.

And says, Mr.

Archibald Nichols, I presume.

No, am I, boy, says the gentleman, I'm sorry to say, dear, drivers deceived you.

Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more.

Come in, come in.

Tommy took a look back over his shoulder and says, Too late.

He's out of sight.

Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with us.

And then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's.

Oh, I can't make you so much trouble I couldn't think of it.

I'll walk.

I don't mind the distance, but we won't let you walk.

It wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do it.

Come right in.

Oh, Dew, says Aunt Sally, it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a bit in the world.

You must stay.

It's a long, dusty three mile, and we can't let you walk.

And besides, I've already told him to put on another plate when I see you coming, so you mustn't disappoint us.

Come right in and make yourself at home.

So Tommy thanked them very hardy and handsome, and let himself be persuaded and come in.

And when he was in, he said he was a stranger from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson.

And he made another bow.

Well, he run on and on and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and everybody in it he could invent.

And I getting a little nervous and wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape.

And at last, still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the mouth and then settled back again in his chair, comfortable, and was going on talking.

But she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of her hand and says, you audacious puppy.

He looked kind of hurt and says, I'm surprised at you, ma'am.

Usurp?

Why, what do you reckon I am?

I have a good notion to take and say, what do you mean by kissing me?

He looked kind of humble and says, I didn't mean nothing, ma'am.

I didn't mean no harm.

I I thought you'd like it.

Why, you born full.

She took up the spinning stick and it looked like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it.

What made you think I'd like it?

Oh, I don't know.

Only they told me you would.

They told you I would?

Whoever told you is another lunatic.

I never heard the beat of it.

Who's they?

Why, everybody.

They all said so, ma'am.

It was all she could do to hold in.

And her eyes snapped and her fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him.

And she says, who's?

Everybody out with their names or they'll be an idiot short.

He got up and looked distressed and fumbled his hat and says, I'm sorry.

I weren't expecting it.

They told me to.

They all told me to.

They all said Kiss her, and said she'd like it.

They all said it, every one of them.

But I'm sorry, ma'am, and I won't do it no more.

I won't, honest.

You won't, won't you?

Well, I should reckon you won't.

No, I'm honest about it.

I won't ever do it again till you ask me.

Till I ask you.

Well, I never see the beat of it.

In my born days.

I lay you'll be the methuselium numbskull of creation before I ever ask you or the likes of you.

Well, he says, it does surprise me, so I can't make it out somehow.

They said you would, and I thought you would.

But he stopped and looked around slow like he wished he could run across a friendly eye somewhere and fetched up on the old gentleman's and says, didn't you think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?

Why?

No, I I well, no, I believe I didn't Then he looks on around the same way to me and says, tom, didn't you think aunt Sally'd open out her arms and say, sid Sawyer my land.

She says, breaking in and jumping for joy, you impugned young rascal to fool a body so.

And was going to hug him, but he fended her off and says, not till you've asked me first.

So she didn't lose no time, but asked him and hugged him and kissed him over and over again.

And then turned him over to the old man and he took what was left.

And after they got a little quiet again, she says why, dear me, I.

Never see such a surprise.

We weren't looking for you at all, but only Tom.

CIS never wrote to me about anybody coming but him.

It's because it weren't intended for any of us to come.

But Tom, he says, but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me come too.

So coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a first rate surprise for him to come here to the house first and for me to buy and buy, tag along and drop in and let on to be a stranger.

But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally.

There ain't no healthy place for a stranger to come.

No, not impudent.

Welps sid, you oughta had your jaws boxed.

I hadn't been so put out since I don't know when.

But I don't care.

I don't mind the terms.

I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to have you here.

Well, to think of that performance I don't deny it.

I was most putrefied with astonishment when you gave me that smack.

We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the kitchen.

And there was things enough on that table for seven families.

And all hot, too.

None of your flabby tough meat that's laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of old cold cannibal in the morning.

Uncle Silas, he asked a pretty long blessing over it, but it was worth it.

And it didn't cool it a bit neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times.

There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon and me and Tom was on the lookout all the time, but it weren't no use.

They didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway servant and we was afraid to try to work up to it.

But at supper at night, one of the little boys says PA May, ain't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?

No, says the old man, I reckon there ain't going to be any.

And you couldn't go if there was, because the runaway servant told Burton and me all about that scandalous show and Burton said he would tell the people.

So I reckon they've drove the Audacious loafers out of town before this time.

So there it was, but I couldn't help it.

Tom and me was to sleep in the same room in bed.

So being tired, we bid good night and went up to bed right after supper and clum out of the window and down the lightning rod and shoved for the town, for I didn't believe anybody was going to give the King and the Duke a hint.

And so if I didn't hurry up and give them one, they'd get into trouble.

Sure.

On the road Tommy told me all about how it was.

Reckoned I was murdered, and how PAP disappeared pretty soon and didn't come back no more.

And what a stir there was when Jim run away.

And I told Tom all about our royal nunsatrapscallions and as much of the raft voyage as I had time to.

And as we struck into the town and up through the middle of it, it was as much as half after eight.

Then here comes a raging rush of people with torches and an awful whooping and yelling and begging, tin pans and blowing horns, and we jumped to one side to let them go by.

And as they went by, I see they had the king and the duke.

A straddle of a rail, that is, I noted was the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers and didn't look like nothing in the world that was human.

Just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier plumes.

Well, it made me sick to see it, and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals.

It seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them anymore in the world.

It was a dreadful thing to see.

Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

We see.

We was too late.

Couldn't do no good.

We asked some stragglers about it and they said everybody went to the show looking very innocent and lay low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the middle of his cavardings on the stage.

Then somebody gave a signal and the house rose up and went for them.

So we poked along back home and I weren't feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery and humble and to blame somehow, though I hadn't done nothing.

But that's always the way.

It don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong.

A person's conscience ain't got no sense and just goes for him anyway.

If I had a yeller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does, I would p*** in him.

It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good know how.

Tom Sawyer, he says the same.

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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