Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I donโt reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I donโt take no stock in mathematics, anyway.
At first I hated the school, but by-and-by I got so I could stand it. Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widowโs ways, too, and they warnโt so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warnโt ashamed of me.
One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, and crossed me off. She says, โTake your hands away, Huckleberry; what a mess you are always making!โ The widow put in a good word for me, but that warnโt going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasnโt one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along low-spirited and on the watch-out.
I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen somebodyโs tracks. They had come up from the quarry and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden fence. It was funny they hadnโt come in, after standing around so. I couldnโt make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didnโt notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.
I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my shoulder every now and then, but I didnโt see nobody. I was at Judge Thatcherโs as quick as I could get there. He said:
โWhy, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?โ
โNo, sir,โ I says; โis there some for me?โ
โOh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last nightโover a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it along with your six thousand, because if you take it youโll spend it.โ
โNo, sir,โ I says, โI donโt want to spend it. I donโt want it at allโnor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to youโthe six thousand and all.โ
He looked surprised. He couldnโt seem to make it out. He says:
โWhy, what can you mean, my boy?โ
I says, โDonโt you ask me no questions about it, please. Youโll take itโwonโt you?โ
He says:
โWell, Iโm puzzled. Is something the matter?โ
โPlease take it,โ says I, โand donโt ask me nothingโthen I wonโt have to tell no lies.โ
He studied a while, and then he says:
โOho-o! I think I see. You want to sell all your property to meโnot give it. Thatโs the correct idea.โ
Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:
โThere; you see it says โfor a consideration.โ That means I have bought it of you and paid you for it. Hereโs a dollar for you. Now you sign it.โ
So I signed it, and left.
Miss Watsonโs nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. But it warnโt no use; he said it wouldnโt talk. He said sometimes it wouldnโt talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit quarter that warnโt no good because the brass showed through the silver a little, and it wouldnโt pass nohow, even if the brass didnโt show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldnโt say nothing about the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldnโt know the difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next morning you couldnโt see no brass, and it wouldnโt feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it.
Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:
โYoโ ole father doanโ know yit what heโs a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he spec heโll go โway, en den agin he spec heโll stay. De besโ way is to resโ easy en let de ole man take his own way. Deyโs two angels hoverinโ rounโ โbout him. One uv โem is white en shiny, en tโother one is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body canโt tell yit which one gwyne to fetch him at de lasโ. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable trouble in yoโ life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time youโs gwyne to git well agin. Deyโs two gals flyinโ โbout you in yoโ life. One uv โemโs light en tโother one is dark. One is rich en tโother is poโ. Youโs gwyne to marry de poโ one fust en de rich one by en by. You wants to keep โway fum de water as much as you kin, en donโt run no resk, โkase itโs down in de bills dat youโs gwyne to git hung.โ
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his own self!