- end_line
- 7093
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T02:27:37.311Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7031
- text
- “Huck, I didn’t wait to look around. I didn’t see the box, I didn’t see
the cross. I didn’t see anything but a bottle and a tin cup on the floor
by Injun Joe; yes, I saw two barrels and lots more bottles in the room.
Don’t you see, now, what’s the matter with that ha’nted room?”
“How?”
“Why, it’s ha’nted with whiskey! Maybe _all_ the Temperance Taverns have
got a ha’nted room, hey, Huck?”
“Well, I reckon maybe that’s so. Who’d ’a’ thought such a thing? But
say, Tom, now’s a mighty good time to get that box, if Injun Joe’s
drunk.”
“It is, that! You try it!”
Huck shuddered.
“Well, no—I reckon not.”
“And I reckon not, Huck. Only one bottle alongside of Injun Joe ain’t
enough. If there’d been three, he’d be drunk enough and I’d do it.”
There was a long pause for reflection, and then Tom said:
“Lookyhere, Huck, less not try that thing any more till we know Injun
Joe’s not in there. It’s too scary. Now, if we watch every night, we’ll
be dead sure to see him go out, some time or other, and then we’ll
snatch that box quicker’n lightning.”
“Well, I’m agreed. I’ll watch the whole night long, and I’ll do it every
night, too, if you’ll do the other part of the job.”
“All right, I will. All you got to do is to trot up Hooper Street a
block and maow—and if I’m asleep, you throw some gravel at the window
and that’ll fetch me.”
“Agreed, and good as wheat!”
“Now, Huck, the storm’s over, and I’ll go home. It’ll begin to be
daylight in a couple of hours. You go back and watch that long, will
you?”
“I said I would, Tom, and I will. I’ll ha’nt that tavern every night for
a year! I’ll sleep all day and I’ll stand watch all night.”
“That’s all right. Now, where you going to sleep?”
“In Ben Rogers’ hayloft. He lets me, and so does his pap’s nigger man,
Uncle Jake. I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he wants me to, and any
time I ask him he gives me a little something to eat if he can spare it.
That’s a mighty good nigger, Tom. He likes me, becuz I don’t ever act as
if I was above him. Sometime I’ve set right down and eat _with_ him. But
you needn’t tell that. A body’s got to do things when he’s awful hungry
he wouldn’t want to do as a steady thing.”
“Well, if I don’t want you in the daytime, I’ll let you sleep. I won’t
come bothering around. Any time you see something’s up, in the night,
just skip right around and maow.”
- title
- Chunk 2