“Don’t ever let on to know us. And
if you hear any digging going on nights, it’s
us; we’re going to set you free.”
Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze
it; then the nigger come back, and we said we’d
come again some time if the nigger wanted us to; and
he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because
the witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it
was good to have folks around then.
It would be most an hour yet till breakfast,
so we left and struck down into the woods; because
Tom said we got to have some light to see how
to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might
get us into trouble; what we must have was a lot of
them rotten chunks that’s called fox-fire, and
just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them
in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid
it in the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom says,
kind of dissatisfied:
“Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy
and awkward as it can be. And so it makes it
so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.
There ain’t no watchman to be drugged—now
there ought to be a watchman. There ain’t
even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And
there’s Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot
chain, to the leg of his bed: why, all you got
to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain.
And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key
to the punkin-headed nigger, and don’t send
nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could a got out
of that window-hole before this, only there wouldn’t
be no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on
his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, it’s the stupidest
arrangement I ever see. You got to invent all
the difficulties. Well, we can’t help
it; we got to do the best we can with the materials
we’ve got. Anyhow, there’s one thing—there’s
more honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties
and dangers, where there warn’t one of them
furnished to you by the people who it was their duty
to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all
out of your own head. Now look at just that
one thing of the lantern. When you come down
to the cold facts, we simply got to let on
that a lantern’s resky. Why, we could work
with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe.
Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up something
to make a saw out of the first chance we get.”
“What do we want of a saw?”
“What do we want of a saw? Hain’t
we got to saw the leg of Jim’s bed off, so as
to get the chain loose?”
“Why, you just said a body could lift up the
bedstead and slip the chain off.”
