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- 3976
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- 2026-01-28T02:26:40.355Z
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- mornings, and you don’t have to go to school, and wash, and all that
blame foolishness. You see a pirate don’t have to do _anything_, Joe,
when he’s ashore, but a hermit _he_ has to be praying considerable, and
then he don’t have any fun, anyway, all by himself that way.”
“Oh yes, that’s so,” said Joe, “but I hadn’t thought much about it, you
know. I’d a good deal rather be a pirate, now that I’ve tried it.”
“You see,” said Tom, “people don’t go much on hermits, nowadays, like
they used to in old times, but a pirate’s always respected. And
a hermit’s got to sleep on the hardest place he can find, and put
sackcloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and—”
“What does he put sackcloth and ashes on his head for?” inquired Huck.
“I dono. But they’ve _got_ to do it. Hermits always do. You’d have to do
that if you was a hermit.”
“Dern’d if I would,” said Huck.
“Well, what would you do?”
“I dono. But I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why, Huck, you’d _have_ to. How’d you get around it?”
“Why, I just wouldn’t stand it. I’d run away.”
“Run away! Well, you _would_ be a nice old slouch of a hermit. You’d be
a disgrace.”
The Red-Handed made no response, being better employed. He had finished
gouging out a cob, and now he fitted a weed stem to it, loaded it with
tobacco, and was pressing a coal to the charge and blowing a cloud of
fragrant smoke—he was in the full bloom of luxurious contentment. The
other pirates envied him this majestic vice, and secretly resolved to
acquire it shortly. Presently Huck said:
“What does pirates have to do?”
Tom said:
“Oh, they have just a bully time—take ships and burn them, and get the
money and bury it in awful places in their island where there’s ghosts
and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships—make ’em walk a
plank.”
“And they carry the women to the island,” said Joe; “they don’t kill the
women.”
“No,” assented Tom, “they don’t kill the women—they’re too noble. And
the women’s always beautiful, too.”
“And don’t they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver
and di’monds,” said Joe, with enthusiasm.
“Who?” said Huck.
“Why, the pirates.”
Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.
“I reckon I ain’t dressed fitten for a pirate,” said he, with a
regretful pathos in his voice; “but I ain’t got none but these.”
But the other boys told him the fine clothes would come fast enough,
after they should have begun their adventures. They made him understand
that his poor rags would do to begin with, though it was customary for
wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe.
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