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

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

Chapter 31 we doesn't stop again at any town for days and days, kept right along down the river.

We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty long ways from home.

We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them hanging down from the limbs like long gray beards.

It was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and dismal.

So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger and they begun to work the villages again.

First they'd done a lecture on temperance, but they didn't make enough for them to both get drunk on.

Then in another village they started a dancing school, but they didn't know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does.

So the first prance they made, the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town.

Another time they tried to go at yellochin, but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing and made them skip out.

They tackled missionarying and mesmerizing and doctoring and telling fortunes and a little of everything, but they couldn't seem to have no luck.

So at last they got just about dead broke and laid around the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking and never saying nothing by the half a day at a time and a dreadful blue and desperate.

And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in the wig wham and talk low and confidential two or 3 hours at a time.

Jim and me got uneasy.

We didn't like the look of it.

We judged they were studying up some kind of worse devil tree than ever.

We turned it over and over and at last we made up our minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store or was going into the counterfeit money business or something.

So then we was pretty scared and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such actions.

And if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind.

Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good safe place about two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville.

And the King, he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the royal nun.

Such there yet house to rob you mean, I says to myself.

And when you get through robbing it, you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim in the raft and you'll have to take it out in wondering.

And he said if he weren't back by midday, the duke and me would know it was all right and we was to come along.

So we stayed where he was.

The Duke, he fretted and sweated around and was in a mighty sour way.

He scolded us for everything and we couldn't seem to do nothing right.

He found fault with every little thing.

Something was a brewing.

Sure I was good and glad when midday come and no king we could have a change anyway and maybe a chance for the change on top of it.

So me and the duke went up to the village and hunted around there for the king.

And by and by we found him in the back room of a little low dodgery, very tight and a lot of loafers bully ragging him for sport and he a cussing and a threatening with all his might.

And so tight he couldn't walk and couldn't do nothing to them.

The Duke, he begun to abuse him for an old fool and the king begun to sass back.

And the minute they was fairly at it, I lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs and spun down the river road like a deer.

For I see our chance.

And I made up my mind that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again.

I got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy and sung out set her loose.

Jim.

We're all right now.

But there weren't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam.

Jim was gone.

I set up a shout and then another and then another one and run this way and that in the woods.

Whooping and screeching.

But it weren't no use.

Old Jim was gone.

Then I sat down and cried.

I couldn't help it, but I still couldn't set long.

Pretty soon I went out on the road, trying to think what I better do.

And I run across a boy walking and asked him if he'd seen a strange servant dressed so and so.

And he says yes.

Whereabouts?

Says I.

Down to Silas Phelps place, 2 miles below here.

He's a runaway servant, and they've got him.

Was you looking for him?

You bet I ain't.

I run across him in the woods about an hour or two ago and he said if I hollered, he'd cut my livers out and told me to lay down and stay where I was.

And I'd done it.

Been there ever since.

Feared to come out.

Well, he says, you needn't be a feared no more because they've got him.

He run off and down south summers.

It's a good job they got him.

Well, I reckon there's $200 reward on him.

It's like picking up money out in the road.

Yes, it is.

And I could have had it if I'd been big enough.

I see him first.

Who nailed him?

It was an old fellow, a stranger.

And he sold out his chance in him for $40 because he got to go up river and can't wait.

Think of that, now.

You bet I'd wait.

If it was seven year.

That's me every time, says I.

But maybe his chance ain't worth no more than that if he'll sell it so cheap.

Maybe there's something ain't straight about it.

But it is, though.

Straight as a string.

I see the hand bill myself.

It tells all about him to a dot.

Paints him like a picture and tells the plantation he's from below New Orleans.

No cerebral.

There ain't no trouble about that.

Speculation?

You bet.

You say, give me a chaw tobacco, won't you?

I didn't have none, so he left.

I went to the raft and sat down in the wigwam to think.

But I couldn't come to nothing.

I thought till I wore my head sore.

But I couldn't see no way out of the trouble after all this long journey and after all we'd done for them scoundrels.

Here it was all come to nothing.

Everything all busted up and ruined because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that and make him a slave again all his life and amongst strangers, too, for 40 dirty dollars.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was as long as he'd got to be a slave.

And so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was.

But I soon give up that notion for two things.

She'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her and so she'd sell him straight down the river again.

And if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful servant and they'd make Jim feel it all the time and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced and then think of me.

It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a servant to get his freedom and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots.

For shame.

That's just the way a person does a lowdown thing and then he don't want to take no consequences of it.

Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.

That was my fix exactly.

The more I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me and the more wicked and low down and ornery I got to feeling.

And at last when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's servant that had never done me no harm and now was showing me there's one that's always on the lookout and ain't to going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further.

Almost dropped in my tracks.

I was so scared.

Well, I tried the best I could to kind of soften up somehow for myself by saying I was brong up wicked and so I weren't so much to blame.

But something inside of me kept saying there was a Sunday school.

You could have gone to it and if you'd have done it, they'd have learned you there.

That people that acts as I'd been acting about that servant goes to everlasting fire.

It made me shiver.

And I about made up my mind to pray and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of boy I was and be better.

So I kneeled down.

But the words wouldn't come.

Why wouldn't they?

It weren't no use to try and hide it from him nor from me neither.

I knowed very well why they wouldn't come.

It was because my heart weren't right.

It was because I weren't square.

It was because I was playing double.

I was letting on to give up sin.

But away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all.

I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing and going right to that servant's owner and tell where he was.

But deep down in me I knowed it was a lie.

And he knowed it.

You can't pray a lie.

I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be and didn't know what to do.

At last, I had an idea and I says I'll go and write the letter and then see if I can pray.

Why, it was astonishing the way I felt.

As light as a feather right straight off and my trouble's all gone.

So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited and sat down and wrote miss Watson, your runaway servant Jim is down here, two mile below Pikesville and Mr.

Phelps has got him and he'll give him up for the reward if you send Huck Finn.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life.

And I knowed I could pray now, but I didn't do it straight off but laid the paper down and sat there thinking how good it was all this happened so and how near I come to being lost and going to h*** and went on thinking and got to thinking over our trip down the river.

And I see Jim before me all the time in the day and in the nighttime sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms.

And we afloating along talking and singing and laughing.

But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him but only the other kind.

I'd see him standing my watch on top of his instead of calling me so I could go on sleeping and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog and when I come to him again in the swamp up there where the feud was and such like times.

And would always call me honey and pet me and do everything he could think of for me and how good he always was.

And at last I struck the time.

I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard.

And he was so grateful and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world and the only one he's got now.

And then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place.

I took it up and held it in my hand.

I was a trembling because I'd got to decide forever betwixt two things, and I noted it.

I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath and then says to myself all right, then, I'll go to h***, and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they were said, and I let them stay said and never thought no more about reforming.

I shoved the whole thing out of my head and said I would take up wickedness again which was in my line being rung up to it and the other weren't.

And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again, and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that too, because as long as I was in and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some considerable many ways in my mind, and at last fixed up a plan that suited me.

So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down the river Apiece, and as soon as it was fairly dark, I crept out with my raft and went for it, and hid there, and then turned in.

I slept the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others in one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore.

I landed below, where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water and loaded rocks into her, and Sunker where I could find her again when I wanted her.

About a quarter of a mile below, a little steam sawmill that was on the bank.

Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill, I see a sign on it felt Sawmill.

And when I come to the farmhouses, two or 300 yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't see nobody around, though it was good daylight now.

But I didn't mind, because I didn't want to see nobody just yet.

I only wanted to get the lay of the land according to my plan.

I was going to turn up there from the village, not from below.

So I just took a look and shoved along straight for town.

Well, the very first man I see when I got there was the Duke.

He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nun.

Such three night performance like that other time they had the cheek, them frauds.

I was right on him.

Before I could shirk.

He looked astonished and says, hello, where'd you come from?

Then he says, kind of glad and eager, where's the raft got her in a good place.

I says, Why, that's just what I was going to ask, your Grace.

Then he didn't look so joyful and says, what was your idea for asking me?

He says, Well, I says, when I see the king in that dogry yesterday, I says to myself, we can't get him home for hours till he's sober.

So I went to loafing around to town to put in the time and wait a man up, and offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch a sheep.

And so I went along.

But when we was dragging him to the boat and the man left me a hold of the rope and went behind him to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run.

And we after him.

We didn't have no dog and so we had to chase him all over the country till we tired him out.

We never got him till dark.

Then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft.

When I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, they've got into trouble and had to leave.

And they've took my servant, which is the only servant I've got in the world.

And now I'm in a strange country and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing and no way to make my living.

So I sat down and cried.

I slept in the woods all night.

But what had become of the raft then?

And poor Jim.

Poor Jim?

Blamed if I know that is what's become of the raft.

That old fool had made a trade and got $40.

And when we found him in the dogry, the loafers had matched half dollars with him and got every cent but what he'd spent for whiskey.

And when I got him home late last night and found the raft gone, we said, that little rascal has stole our raft and shook us and run off down the river.

I wouldn't shake my servant, would I?

The only servant I had in the world and the only property.

We never thought of that fact as I reckon we'd come to consider him our servant.

Yes, we did consider him.

So good it snows.

We had trouble enough for him.

So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, there weren't anything for it but to trial the Royal Nun.

Such another shake.

And I've pegged along ever since.

Dry as a powder horn.

Where's that $0.10?

Give it here.

I had considerable money, so I give him $0.10, but begged him to spend it for something to eat and give me some because it was all the money I had and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday.

He never said nothing.

The next minute he whirls on me and says do you reckon that servant would blow on us?

We'd skin him if he'd done that.

How can he blow?

Can't he run off?

No, that old fool sold him and never divided with me, and the money's gone.

Sold him, I says, and begun to cry.

Why, he was my servant, and that was my money.

Where is he?

I want my servant.

Well, you can't get your servant.

That's also dry up your blubbering.

Looky here, do you think you'd venture to blow on us?

Blamed if I think I'd trust you.

Why, if you was to blow on us, he stopped.

But I never see the Duke look so ugly out of his eyes before.

I went on a whimpering and says I don't want to blow on nobody and I ain't got no time to blow.

Knowhow I got to turn out and find my servant.

He looked kind of bothered and stood there with his bills fluttering on his arm thinking and wrinkling up his forehead.

At last he says, I'll tell you something.

We got to be here three days.

If you'll promise you won't blow and won't let the servant blow I'll tell you where to find him.

So I promised, and he says, a farmer by the name of Silas.

And then he stopped.

You see, he started to tell me the truth.

But when he stopped that way and begun to study and think again I reckoned he was changing his mind.

And so he was.

He wouldn't trust me.

He wanted to make sure of having me out of the way the whole three days.

So pretty soon, he says, the man that bought him is named Abram.

Foster.

Abram g foster.

And he lives 40 miles back here in the country on the road to Lafayette.

All right, I says.

I can walk it in three days and I'll start this very afternoon.

No, you won't.

You'll start now.

And don't you lose any time about it.

Neither, nor do any gavebling about the way.

Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along and then you won't get into trouble with us, dear.

That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for.

I wanted to be left free to work my plans.

So clear out, he says, and you can tell Mr.

Foster whatever you want to.

Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim is your servant.

Some idiots don't require documents, least ways.

I've heard they're such down south here.

And when you tell him the handbill and the rewards bogus maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for getting him out.

Go along now and tell him anything you want to.

But mind you don't work your jaw any between here and there.

So I left and struck for the backcountry.

I didn't look around, but I kind of felt like he was watching me.

But I knowed I could tire him out at that.

I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before I stopped.

Then I doubled back through the woods toward Phelps's.

And I reckoned I better start on my plan straight off without fooling around because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could get away.

I didn't want no trouble with their kind.

I'd seen all I wanted to of them and wanted to get entirely shut of them.

Thank you for joining Bite at a.

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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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