Adventures of Col. Daniel Boone | Page 2

the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter
with them,--that is, nothing 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
Bulrushers, 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 him, because I don't take no stock in
dead people.
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must
try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They
get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she
was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to
anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for
doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of
course that was all right, because she 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 middling 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 warn'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.
Miss 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 set 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, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill
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