Original subtitles

1. You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of the adventures

of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he

told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly,

or the widow, or maybe Mary— Aunt Polly, Tom's Aunt Polly, she is, and Mary—and

the widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some

stretchers, as I said before. Now, the way that the book winds up is this. Tom and me

found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand

dollars apiece, all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well,

Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day

apiece all the year round, more than a body could tell what to do with. The widow Douglas,

she took me for her son, and allowed she would civilize me. But it was rough living in the

house all the time, considering how dismal, regular, and decent the widow was in all her

ways, and so when I couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags

and my sugar hogs head again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he hunted

me up, and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go

back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. The widow she cried over me, and

called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never

meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but

sweat and sweat and feel all cramped up. Well, then the old thing commenced again. The widow

wrung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table, you couldn't

go right to eatin', but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble

a little over the vitals, though there weren't really anything to matter with 'em. That is,

nothin' only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different.

Things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better. After

supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bullrushers, and I was

in a sweat to find out all about him. But by and by she let it out that Moses had been

dead a considerable long time, so then I didn't care no more about 'em, because I don't take

no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and ask the widow to let me, but

she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try not to do

it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they

don't know nothin' about it. Here she was a-botherin' about Moses, which was no kin

to her, and no use to anybody, bein' gone, you see, yet finding a power of thought with

me for doin' a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too. Of course that

was all right, because she'd done it herself. Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old

maid with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a

spelling book. She worked me middlin' hard for about an hour, and then the widow made

her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then, for an hour, it was deadly dull, and

I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry, and don't

scrunch up like that, Huckleberry. Set up straight." And pretty soon she would say,

"Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry. Why don't you try to behave?" Then she told

me all about the bad place. And I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't

mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres. All I wanted was a change. I weren't particular.

She said it was wicked to say what I said. Said she wouldn't say it for the whole world.

She was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in

going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said

so because it would only make trouble and wouldn't do no good. Now, she had got a start, and

she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do

there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't

think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there,

and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about that because I wanted him

and me to be together. Ms. Watson, she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome.

By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody was off to bed.

I went up to my room with a piece of candle and put it on the table. Then I sat down in

a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use.

I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining and the leaves rustled

in the woods ever so mournful, and I heard an owl away off, hoo-hooin' about somebody

that was dead, and a whip-a-will and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die,

and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was,

and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind

of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind

and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave and has to go about

that way every night, grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company.

Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle,

and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that

that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most

shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and

crossed my breast every time, and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread

to keep witches away. But I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that

you found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever heard anybody say

it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed a spider. I sat down again, shaking

all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke, for the house was all as still as death now,

and so the widow wouldn't know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in

the town go boom, boom, boom, twelve licks, and all still again, stiller than ever. Pretty

soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the trees. Something was a-sturring.

I sat still and listened. Directly I could just barely hear a "meow, meow" down there.

This was good, says I, meow, meow, as soft as I could, and then I put out the light and

scrambled out the window onto the shed. Then I slipped down to the ground and crawled in

among the trees, and sure enough, there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me.

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