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

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

Chapter 41 the Doctor was an old man.

A very nice, kind looking old man.

When I got him up, I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting yesterday afternoon and camped on a piece of raft we found.

And about midnight he must have kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot him in the leg.

And we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know because we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks.

Who is your folks?

He said.

The Phelps is down yonder.

Oh, he says.

And after a minute he says, How'd you say he got shot?

He had a dream, I says, and it shot him.

Singular dream, he says.

So he lit up his lantern and got his saddlebags and we started.

But when he sees the canoe, he didn't like the look of her.

Said she was big enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two.

I says, oh, you needn't be a feared, sir.

She carried the three of us easy enough.

What three?

Why, me and Sid and the guns, that's what I mean.

Oh, he says.

But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her and shook his head and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one.

But they was all locked and chained.

So he took my canoe and said for me to wait till he come back or I could hunt around further or maybe I better go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to.

But I said I didn't.

So I told him just how to find the raft and then he started.

I struck an idea pretty soon I says to myself suppose any can't fix that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail as the saying is.

Supposing it takes him three or four days.

What are we going to do?

Lay around there till he lets the cat out of the bag?

No sir.

I know what I'll do.

I'll wait.

And when he comes back if he says he's got to go anymore, I'll get down there too if I swim and we'll take and tie him and keep him and shove out down the river.

And when Tom's done with him we'll give him what it's worth or all we got and then let him get ashore.

So then I crept into a lumber pile to get some sleep and next time I wake up the sun was away over my head.

I shot out and went for the doctor's house but they told me he'd gone away in the night sometime or other and weren't back yet.

Well, thanks I that looks powerful bad for Tom.

And I'll dig out for the island right off.

So away I shoved and turned to the corner and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's stomach.

He says, why, Tom, where you been all this time, you rascal?

I ain't been nowhere, I says.

Only just hunting for the runaway servant me and Sid.

Why, wherever did you go?

He says.

Your aunt's been mighty uneasy.

She needn't, I says because we was all right.

We followed the men and the dogs but they outrun us and we lost them.

But we thought we heard them on the water.

So we got a canoe and took out after them and crossed over but we couldn't find nothing of them.

So we cruised along upshore till we got kind of tired and beat out and tied up the canoe and went to sleep and never waked up till about an hour ago.

Then we paddled over here to hear the news and Sid's at the post office to see what he can hear and IMA branching out to get something to eat for us and then we're going home.

So then we went to the post office to get Sid but just as I suspicioned he weren't there.

So the old man, he got a letter out of the office and we waited a while longer but Sid didn't come.

So the old man said come along let Sid foot at home or canoe it when he got done fooling around.

But we would ride.

I couldn't get him to let me stay and wait for Sid and he said there weren't no use in it and I must come along and let Aunt Sally see we was all right when we got home.

Aunt Sally was that glad to see me.

She laughed and cried both and hugged me and give me one of them lickings of hern that don't amount to shocks and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come.

And the place was plumb full of farmers and farmers wives to dinner and such.

Another clack a body never heard.

Old Mrs.

Hodgkiss was the worst.

Her tongue was going all the time.

She says, well, Sister Phelps, I've ransacked that air cabin over and I believe the servant was crazy.

I says to Sister Damrell.

Didn't I, sister Damrell?

He's crazy.

NIMS the very words I said.

You all heard me, he's crazy.

Everything shows it.

Look at that air grindstone.

Want to tell me then?

He creatures in its right mind's going to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone.

Here, sitch.

And such a person busted his heart.

And here's so and so so pegged along for 37 year and all that natural son and Louis something and such everlasting rubbish.

He's plumb crazy.

It's what I says in the first place, it's what I said in the middle and it's what I says last in all the time.

The servant's crazy.

Crazy is nebuchadnezzar.

And look at that air ladder made out of rag.

Sister Hodgkiss says old Mrs.

Damrell.

What in the name of goodness could he ever want of the very words I was a saying no longer in this minute to Sister utterback and she'll tell you so herself.

She, she.

Look at that air rag ladder.

She she.

And yes look at it.

What could he have wanted of it?

She she sister hoskis.

She she.

But how in the nation they ever get that grindstone in there anyway?

And who dug that air hole?

And who?

My very words.

Brere Penrod.

I was a saiyan past that air sasser and molasses won't she?

I was a saying to Sister Dunlap just this minute how did they get that grindstone in there without help?

Mind you, without help there's where it is.

Don't tell me there was help.

And there was a plenty help too.

There's been a dozen help in that servant.

And I lay I'd skin every last servant on this place but I'd find out who'd done it.

And moreover a dozen says you 40 couldn't have done everything that's been done.

Look at them case, knife saws and things.

How tedious they've been made.

Look at that bed leg sawed off with them a week's worth for six men.

Look at that servant made out in straw on the bed and look at you may well say it Brere High Tower.

It's just as I was saying to Brere Phelps his own self.

So what do you think of it, Sister Hodgkiss?

Think of what, Bret Phelps?

Think of that bed leg.

Saw it off that way.

Think of it.

I lay it, never saw it itself off.

Somebody saw it.

That's my opinion.

Take it or leave it, it mayn't be no count, but such as it is, it's my opinion.

And if anybody can start a better one, let him do it.

That's all I says to Sister Dunlap.

Why, dog my cats.

They must have been a house full of servants in there every night for four weeks to have done all that work.

Sister Phelps, look at that shirt.

Every last inch of it kivered over with the secret African writing done with blood.

Must have been a raft of them at night, right along all the time, almost.

Why, I'd give $2 to have it read to me.

And as for the servants that wrote it, although I'd taken lasham people to help him, Brother Marples well, I reckon you'd think so if you'd have been in this house for a while back.

Why, they've stole everything they could lay their hands on, and we are watching all the time.

Mind you, they stole that shirt right off of the line.

And as for that sheet they made the rag ladder out of, there ain't no telling how many times they didn't steal that.

And flour and candles and candlesticks and spoons in the old warming pan.

And most a thousand things that I disremember now.

And my new calico dress, and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day and night, as I was telling you.

And not one of us could catch hide nor hair, nor sight, nor sound of them.

And at the last minute, lo and behold, you they slides right in under our noses and fools us.

And not only fools us, but the engine territory robbers, too, and actually gets away with that servant safe and sound.

And that was 16 men and 22 dogs right on their very heels at that very time.

I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever heard of.

Why, spirits couldn't have done better and been no smarter.

And I reckon they must have been spirits, because you know our dogs and there ain't no better.

Well, them dogs never even got on the track of them once.

You explain that to me, if you can, any of you.

Well, it does beat law's alive.

I never, so help me, I wouldn't to be house thieves as well as goodness gracious sakes, I'd been afear to live in such a afraid to live.

Why, I was that scared, I doesn't hardly go to bed or get up or lay down or sat down.

Sister Ridgeway.

Why, they'd steal the very why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night.

I hoped to gracious if I weren't afraid they'd steal some of the family.

I was just to that pass.

I didn't have no reasoning faculties no more.

It looks foolish enough now in the daytime, but I says to myself, there's my two boys asleep way upstairs in that lonesome room.

And I declare to goodness I was that uneasy tie crept up there and locked him in, I did, and anybody would.

Because you know when you get scared that way and it keeps running on and getting worse and worse all the time and your wits get to addling and you get to doing all sorts of wild things.

And by and by you think to yourself, suppose an eye was a boy and was away up there and the door ain't locked in.

You.

She stopped looking, kind of wondering.

And then she turned her head around slow.

And when her eyelid on me, I got up and took a walk.

Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little.

So I'd done it.

But I dassent go fur she descent for me.

And when it was late in the day, the people all went.

And then I come in and told her the noise and shooting waked up me and Sid, and the door was locked and we wanted to see the fun.

So we went down the lightning rod and both of us got hurt a little and we didn't never want to try that no more.

And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas before.

And then she said she'd forgive us and maybe it was all right enough anyway.

And about what a body might expect of boys for all boys was a pretty harem scarum lot as far as she could see.

And so as long as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she had us still said of fretting over what was past and done.

So then she kissed me and patted me on the head and dropped into a kind of brown study and pretty soon jumps up and says, why, laws of mercy.

It's most night, and Sid had not come yet.

What has become of that boy?

I see my chance.

So I skips up and says I'll run right up to town and get him.

I says, no, you won't, she says.

You'll stay right where you are.

One's enough to be lost at a time.

If he ain't here to supper, your uncle will go.

Well, he weren't there to supper, so right after supper uncle went.

He come back about ten, a little bit uneasy.

Hadn't run across Tom's track.

Aunt Sally was a good deal uneasy, but Uncle Silas, he said there weren't no occasion to be boys.

Will be boys, he said, and you'll see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right so she had to be satisfied but she said she'd set up for him a while anyway and keep a light burning so he could see it.

And then when I went up to bed, she come up with me and fetched her candle and tucked me in and mothered me so good I felt mean and like I couldn't look her in the face.

And she sat down on the bed and talked with me a long time time and said what a splendid boy Sid was and didn't seem to want to ever stop talking about him and kept asking me every now and then if I reckoned he could get lost or heard or maybe drowned and might be laying at this minute somewhere, suffering or dead.

And she not buy him to help him.

And so the tears would drip down silent and I would tell her that Sid was all right and would be home in the morning, sure and she would squeeze my hand or maybe kiss me and tell me to say it again and keep on saying it because it done her good and she was in so much trouble.

And when she was going away, she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle and says, the door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window in the rod.

But you'll be good, won't you?

And you won't go for my sake.

Laws knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom and was all intending to go.

But after that I wouldn't have went.

Not for kingdoms.

But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind so I slept very restless and twice I went down the rod away in the night and slipped around front and see her sitting there by her candle in the window with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them.

And I wished I could do something for her, but I couldn't.

Only to swear that I wouldn't never do nothing to grieve her anymore.

And the third time I waked up at dawn and slid down and she was there yet, and her candle was most out and her old gray head was resting on her hand and she was asleep.

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'll come back tomorrow for the next bite of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

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Take a look in the broken.

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