"Huck" Introduces Himself.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 79, 11 April 1885, Page 5

"Huck" Introduces Himself.

You don't know about mo, without you have road a book by tho namo of "Tho Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter. That book was mado by Mr Mark Twain, and ho told tho truth, mainly. Thoro was things which ho stretched, but mainly ho told the truth. That is nothing.

I nevor seen anybody but Hod, ono timo or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or tho widow, ormayboMary. Aunt Polly—Tom's Aunt Polly, she is—and Mary, and tho Widow Douglas, is all told about in that book —which is mostly a truo book ; with somo strotchers, ns I said before. Now tho way that tho book winds up is this : Tom and mo found tho monoy that tho robbors hid in tho cavo, and it made us rich. Wo got six thousand dollars apiece—all gold. It was an awful sight of monoy when it was piled up. Woll, Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece, all tho year round—more than a body could tell what to do with. Tho Widow Douglas sho took me for her eon, and allowed she would civilise me; but it was rough living in the house all the timo, considering how dismal regular and decent tho widow was in all her ways; and so whon I couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. 1 got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshoud a^ain, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer ho hunted me up, and said ho 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 crkd 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 rung a boll for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the tablo you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down hor head and grumble a little over tho 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 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 " Bulrushes"; 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 tako no stock in dead people. Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. Sho 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 uso to anybody, being gono, you see, yot finding a powor of fault with mo for doing a thing that had somo good in it. And eho took snuff too ; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.—"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade.)" By Mark Twain.