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

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

Chapter 18.

Colonel Granger Ford was a gentleman.

You see.

He was a gentleman all over, and so was his family.

He was well born, as the saying is, and that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, though the widow Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy in our town, and PAP, he always said it, too, though he weren't no more quality than a mud cat himself.

Colonel Granger Ford was very tall and very slim, and had a darkish paley complexion, not a sign of reddit anywheres.

He was clean shaved every morning, all over his thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and a high nose and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at you, as you may say.

His forehead was high, and his hair was black and straight and hung to his shoulders.

His hands was long and thin, and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head to foot, made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it.

And on Sundays he wore a blue tail coat with brass buttons on it.

He carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it.

There weren't no frivolousness about him, not a bit.

And he weren't ever loud.

He was as kind as he could be.

You could feel that, you know.

And so you had confidence.

Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see.

But when he straightened himself up like a liberty pole and the lightning began to flicker out from under his eyebrows he wanted to climb a tree first and find out what the matter was afterwards.

He didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners.

Everybody was always good mannered where he was.

Everybody loved to have him around, too.

He was sunshine most always.

I mean, he made it seem like good weather.

When he turned into a cloud bank, it was awful dark for half a minute, and that was enough.

There wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week.

When him and the old lady come down in the morning, all the family got up out of their chairs and give them a good day and didn't set down again till they had sat down.

Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where the decanter was and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him.

And he held it in his hands and waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed.

And then they bowed and said, our duty to you, sir and madam.

And they bowed the least bit in the world and said, thank you.

And so they drank, all three.

And Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and the might of whiskey or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers and give it to me and Buck.

And we drank to the old people too.

Bob was the oldest, and Tom next.

Tall, beautiful men with very broad shoulders and brown faces and long black hair and black eyes.

They dressed in white linen from head to foot like the old gentleman and wore broad Panama hats.

Then there was Miss Charlotte.

She was 25 and tall and proud and grand but as good as she could be when she weren't stirred up.

But when she was, she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks like her father.

She was beautiful.

So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind.

She was gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only 20.

Each person had their own servant to wait on them.

Buck, too.

My servant had a monstrous easy time because I weren't used to having anybody do anything for me.

But Bucks was on the jump most of the time.

This was all there was of the family now.

But there used to be more.

Three sons they got killed, and Emilene that died.

The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred servants.

Sometimes a stack of people would come there horseback from ten or 15 miles around and stay five or six days and have such junketings round and bout and on the river and dances and picnics in the wood, stay times and balls at the house nights.

These people was mostly kinsfolk of the family.

The men brought their guns with them.

It was a handsome lot of quality, I tell you.

There was another clan of aristocracy around there, five or six families, mostly of the name of Shepherdson.

They was as high toned and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Granger Fords.

The Shepherdsons and Granger Fords used the same steamboat landing, which was about two mile above our house.

So sometimes when I went up there with a lot of our folks, I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their fine horses.

One day, Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting and heard a horse coming.

We was crossing the road.

Buck says, Quick, jump for the woods.

We done it and then peeped down the woods through the leaves.

Pretty soon, a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his horse easy and looking like a soldier.

He had his gun across his pummel.

I had seen him before.

It was young Harney Shepherdson.

I heard Buck's gun go off at my ear and Harney's hat tumbled off from his head.

He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where he was hid.

But we didn't wait.

We started through the woods on a run.

The woods weren't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet.

And twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun.

And then he rode away.

The way he come to get his hat, I reckon.

But I couldn't see.

We never stopped running till we got home.

The old gentleman's eyes blazed a minute.

Twas pleasure.

Mainly, I judged.

Then his face sort of smoothed down and he says, kind of gentle, I don't like that, shooting from behind a bush.

Why didn't you step into the road, my boy?

The Shepherdsons.

Don't.

Father.

They always take advantage.

Miss Charlotte, she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped.

The two young men looked dark, but never said nothing.

Miss Sophia, she turned pale, but the color came back when she found the man.

Weren't hurt.

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn cribs under the trees by ourselves, I says, do you want to kill him, Buck?

Well, I bet I did.

What did he do to you?

Him?

He never done nothing to me.

Well, then why do you want to kill him for?

Why, nothing.

Only it's on account of the feud.

What's a feud?

Why, where was you raised?

Don't you know what a feud is?

Never heard of it before.

Tell me about it.

Well, says Buck, a feud is this way, a man has a quarrel with another man and kills him.

Then that other man's brother kills him.

Then the other brothers on both sides goes for one another.

Then the cousins chip in, and by and by, everybody's killed off and there ain't no more feud.

But it's kind of slow and takes a long time.

Has this one been going on long, Buck?

Well, I should reckon it started 30 year ago or summers along there.

There was trouble about something and then a lawsuit to settle it.

And the suit went again on one of the men and so he up and shot the man who won the suit which he would naturally do, of course.

Anybody would.

What was the trouble about Buck?

Land, I reckon.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Well, who done the shooting?

Was it a Granger Ford or a Shepherdson laws.

How do I know?

It was so long ago.

Don't anybody know?

Oh, yes.

Paul knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people.

But they don't know now what the row was about in the first place.

Has there been many killed, Buck?

Yes.

Right smart chance of funerals, but they don't always kill.

Paw's got a few bucks shot in him, but he don't mind it because he don't weigh much anyway.

Bob's been carved up some with a bow tie and Tom's been hurt once or twice.

Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?

Yes.

We got one and they got one.

About three months ago, my cousin Bud, 14 years old was riding through the woods on the other side of the river and didn't have no weapon with him which was blame foolishness.

And in a lonesome place he hears a horse coming behind him and sees old baldi Shepherdson linking after him with his gun in his hand and his white hair flying in the wind instead of jumping off and taking to the brush.

Bud loud, he could outrun him.

So he had it nip and tuck for five mile or more.

The old man again all the time.

So at last Bud seen it weren't any use.

So he stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know.

And the old man, he rode up and shot him down.

But he didn't get much chance to enjoy his luck for inside of a week, our folks laid him out.

I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck.

I reckon he weren't a coward, not by a blame sight.

There ain't a coward amongst them Shepherdsons, not a one.

And there ain't no cowards amongst the Granger Fords either.

Why, that old man cup up his end in a fight one day for half an hour against three Granger Fords and come out winner.

That was all a horseback.

He lit off on his horse and got behind a little wood pile and kept his horse before him to stop the bullets.

But the Granger Ford stayed on their horses and capered around the old man and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them.

Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled.

But the Granger Fords had to be fetched home and one of them was dead and another died the next day.

No, sir.

If a body's out hunting for cowards, you don't want to fool away any time amongst them shepherd sins because they don't breed any of that kind.

Next Sunday, we all went to church about Three Mile, everybody a horseback.

The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall.

The Shepherdson's done the same.

It was pretty ornery, preaching all about brotherly love and such like tiredsomeness, but everybody said it was a good sermon and they all talked it over, going home and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and pre four destination and I don't know what all that.

It did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across.

Yet about an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull.

Buck and a dog was stretched out on the grass and the sun sound asleep.

I went up to our room and judged I would take a nap myself.

I found that sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours.

And she took me in her room and shut the door very soft and asked me if I liked her.

And I said I did.

And she asked me if I would do something for her and not tell anybody.

And I said I would.

Then she said she'd forgot her testament and left it in the seat at church between two other books and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her and not say nothing to nobody.

I said I would, so I slid out and slipped off up the road.

And there weren't anybody at the church except maybe a hog or two, for there weren't any lock on the door.

And hogs likes a punch in floor in summertime because it's cool if you notice.

Most folks don't go to church only when they've got to.

But a hog is different, says I to myself.

Something's up.

It ain't natural for a girl to be in such a sweat about a testament.

So I give it a shake and out drops a little piece of paper with 02:30 wrote on it with a pencil.

I ransacked it but couldn't find anything else.

I couldn't make anything out of that.

So I put the paper in the book again.

And when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me.

She pulled me in and shut the door.

Then she looked in the testament till she found the paper.

And as soon as she read it, she looked glad.

And before a body could think, she grabbed me and gave me a squeeze and said I was the best boy in the world and not to tell anybody.

She was mighty red in the face for a minute and her eyes lighted up and it made her powerful pretty.

I was a good deal astonished, but when I got my breath, I asked her what the paper was about and she asked me if I had read it and I said no.

And she asked me if I could read writing and I told her no, only course hand.

And then she said the paper weren't anything but a bookmark to keep her place and I might go and play.

Now.

I went off down to the river, studying over this thing and pretty soon I noticed that my servant was following along behind.

When we was out of sight of the house, he looked back and around a second and then comes a running and says, mars George, if you come down into this swamp, I'll show you a whole stack of water moccasins.

Ning sigh.

That's mighty curious.

He said that yesterday.

You ought to know a body don't love water moccasins enough to go around hunting for them.

What is he up to, anyway?

So I says, all right, trot ahead.

I followed a half mile.

Then he struck out over the swamp and waited ankle deep as much as another half mile.

We come to a little flat piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines.

And he says you shove right in there just a few steps, Mars George.

That's what they is.

I see him before.

I don't care to see him no more.

Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hit him.

I poked into the place aways and come to a little open patch as big as a bedroom, all hung around with vines and found a man laying there asleep.

And by jings, it was my old gym.

I waked him up and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to see me again, but it weren't.

He nearly cried, he was so glad, but he weren't surprised.

Said he swam along behind me that night and heard me yell every time but Dassened answer because he didn't want nobody to pick him up and take him into slavery again.

Says he, I got hurt a little and couldn't swim fast so I was a considerable ways behind you towards the last.

When you landed.

I reckon I could catch up with you on the land, doubt having to shout at you.

But when I see that house, I begin to go slow.

I is off too fur to hear what they say to you.

I was afraid of the dogs, but when it is all quiet again, I knowed you in the house.

So I struck out for the woods to wait for Day.

Early in the morning, some of the servants come along, go into the fields and they tuck me and showed me displace where the dogs can't track me on accounts of the water.

And they brings me to Truck every night and tells me how you're getting along.

Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, JeM?

Well, Torn, no use disturb you hawk till we could do something.

But we's all right now.

I've been a buying pots and pans and viddles as I got a chance and a patch in up the raft nights when what raft, Jim?

Our old raft.

You mean to say our old raft weren't smashed all the flinders?

No, she weren't.

She was tore up a good deal.

One in Ever was, but they weren't no great harm done.

Only our traps was most all lost.

If we hadn't dived so deep and swum so fur underwater and denied hadn't been so dark and we weren't so scared and been such pumpkin heads as to saying is, we'd deceived the wrath.

But it's just as well we didn't because now she all fixed up again most as good as new and we've got a new lot of stuff into place.

It was as loss.

Why, how did you get a hold of the raft again, Jim?

Did you catch her?

How I going to catch her?

And I out in the woods?

No.

Some of the servants found her catched on a snag along here in Dubin and they hit her in a crick amongst de willows.

And it was so much jaw about which one she belonged to most.

Dad, I come to hear about it pretty soon.

So I ups and settles to trouble by telling them she don't belong to none of them but to you and me.

And I ask them if they going to grab a young white gentleman's property and get a hidden for it.

Then I get them $0.10 apiece.

And Day is mighty well satisfied and wished some old rafts had come along to make them rich again.

They as mighty good to me, these servants is and whatever I want them to do for me I don't want have to ask them twice.

Honey, that Jack's a good servant and pooty smart.

Yes, he is.

He ain't ever told me he was here.

Told me to come and he'd showed me a lot of water moccasins.

If anything happens, he ain't mixed up in it.

He can say he never seen us together and it'll be the truth.

I don't want to talk much about the next day.

I reckon I'll cut it pretty short.

I waked up about dawn and was it going to turn over and go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was didn't seem to be anybody stirring that weren't usual.

Next I noticed that Buck was up and gone while I gets up a wondering and goes downstairs.

Nobody around.

Everything is still as a mouse just the same outside thinks sigh what does it mean down by the wood pile?

It comes across my jack and says what's it all about?

Says he.

Don't you know Maz George?

No, says I.

I don't.

Well then Miss Sophia's runoff deed she has.

She run off in the night sometime.

Nobody don't know just when run off to get married to that young honey shepherdson, you know least way so they spec the family founded about half an hour ago maybe a little more.

And I tell you they weren't no time lost.

Such another hurrying up guns and horses you never see.

The women folks has gone for to stir up the relations and old Moss Saul and the boys took their guns and rode up the river for to try to catch that young man and kill him for he can get across the river with Miss Sophia.

I reckon day's going to be mighty rough times.

Buck went off without waking me up.

Well I reckon he did.

They weren't going to mix you up in it ma's.

Buck, he loaded up his gun and loud he going to fetch home a shepherd center bust.

Well there'll be plenty in Manda I reckon and you bet he'll fetch one of them if he gets a chance.

I took up the river as hard as I could put by and by.

I begin to hear guns a good ways off when I come inside of the log store in the wood pile where the steamboats lands.

I worked along under the trees and brushed till I got to a good place.

And then I clumb up into the forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach and watched.

There was a wood rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree and first I was going to hide behind that but maybe it was luckier I didn't.

There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open place before the log store cursing and yelling and trying to get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood rank alongside of the steamboat landing but they couldn't come it.

Every time one of them showed himself on the riverside of the wood pile he got shot at.

The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile so they could watch both ways by and by.

The men stopped cavorting around and yelling.

They started riding towards the store.

Then up gets one of the boys draws a steady bead over the wood rank and drops one of them out of his saddle.

All the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started to carry him to the store.

In that minute the two boys started on the run.

They got halfway to the tree I was in before the men noticed.

Then the men see them and jumped on their horses and took out after them.

They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no good.

The boys had too good a start.

They got to the wood pile that was in front of my tree and slipped in behind it.

And so they had the bulge on the men again.

One of the boys was Buck and the other was a slim young chap about 19 years old.

The men ripped around a while and then rode away as soon as they was out of sight.

I sung out to Buck and told him.

He didn't know what to make of my voice coming out of the tree.

At first he was awful surprised.

He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men come inside again.

Said they was up to some devil mint or other.

Wouldn't be gone long.

I wished I was out of that tree, but I doesn't come down.

Buck began to cry and rip and loud that him and his cousin Joe that was the other young chap would make up for this day.

Yet he said his father and his two brothers was killed and two or three of the enemy said the shepherd sins laid for them in ambush.

Buck said his father and brothers ought to wait for their relations.

The shepherd sins was too strong for them.

I asked him what was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia.

He said they'd got across the river and was safe.

I was glad of that.

But the way Buck did take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day, he shot at him.

I never heard anything like it.

All of a sudden, bang, bang, bang goes three or four guns.

The men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their horses.

The boys jumped for the river.

Both of them hurt, and as they swum down the current the men run along the bank, shooting at them and singing out, kill them.

Kill them.

It made me so sick, I most fell out of the tree.

I ain't going to tell all that happened.

It would make me sick again if I was to do that.

I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things.

I ain't ever going to get shut of them.

Lots of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.

Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods.

And twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns.

So I reckoned the trouble was still going on.

I was mighty downhearted.

So I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go in near that house again because I reckoned I was to blame.

Somehow I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at 02:30 and run off.

And I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way she acted.

And then maybe he would have locked her up and this awful mess wouldn't ever happen.

When I got down out of the tree, I crept along down the riverbank apiece and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water and tugged at them till I got them ashore.

Then I covered up their faces and got away as quick as I could.

I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face for he was a mighty good to me.

It was just dark now.

I never went near the house but struck through the woods and made for the swamp.

Jim weren't on his island, so I tramped off in a hurry for the crick and crowded through the willows red hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country.

The raft was gone my souls, but I was scared.

I couldn't get my breath for most a minute.

Then I raised a yell.

A voice not 25 foot from me says Good land, is that you, honey?

Don't make no noise.

It was Jim's voice.

Nothing ever sounded so good before.

I run along the bank apiece and got aboard and Jimmy grabbed me and hugged me.

He was glad to see me, he says.

Laws bless you chow eyes right down.

Shows you dead again.

Jack's been here, he says.

He reckon you've been shot because you didn't come home no more.

So as just this minute is starting to raft down towards the mouth of the crick so as to be all ready for to shove out and leave as soon as Jack comes again and tells me for certain you is dead.

lazies mighty glad to get you back again, honey, I says all right, that's mighty good.

They won't find me and they'll think I've been killed and floated down the river.

There's something up there that'll help me think.

So so you don't lose time, Jim, but just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can.

I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi.

Then we hung up our signal lantern and judged that we was free and safe once more.

I hadn't had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim, he got out some corn dodgers and buttermilk and pork and cabbage and greens.

There ain't nothing in the world so good when it's cooked right.

And whilst I eat my supper, we talked and had a good time.

I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds and so was Jim to get away from the swamp.

We said there weren't no home like a raft after all.

Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery but a raft don't.

They feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

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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