Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009

Convincing. But I rather think it appeared in a strip in the old
/Eagle/, too.

In our last episode,
<guditl015gn@drn.newsguy.com>,
the lovely and talented R H Draney
broadcast on alt.usage.english:

 
From an early PG file (which may have been superseded by now):

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) [EBook
#76] { 76}

***** This file should be named 76.txt or 76.zip *****

Produced by David Widger. Previous editions produced by Ron Burkey and
Internet Wiretap

HUCKLEBERRY FINN

By Mark Twain

[Huck is disguised as a girl.]

"What did you say your name was, honey?"

"M--Mary Williams."

Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't
look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered,
and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too.  I wished the woman would
say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was.  But now
she says:

"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?"

"Oh, yes'm, I did.  Sarah Mary Williams.  Sarah's my first name.  Some
calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary."

"Oh, that's the way of it?"

"Yes'm."

I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway.  I
couldn't look up yet.

Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor
they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the
place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again.  She was right
about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner
every little while.  She said she had to have things handy to throw at
them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace.  She showed
me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot
with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't
know whether she could throw true now.  But she watched for a chance, and
directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!"
it hurt her arm so.  Then she told me to try for the next one.  I wanted
to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't
let on.  I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let
drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick
rat.  She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the
next one.  She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and
brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with.  I
held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking
about her and her husband's matters.  But she broke off to say:

"Keep your eye on the rats.  You better have the lead in your lap,
handy."

So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my
legs together on it and she went on talking.  But only about a minute.
Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, and very
pleasant, and says:

"Come, now, what's your real name?"

"Wh--what, mum?"

"What's your real name?  Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?"

I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do.  But I
says:

"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum.  If I'm in the way
here, I'll--"

"No, you won't.  Set down and stay where you are.  I ain't going to hurt
you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther.  You just tell me your
secret, and trust me.  I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help you.
So'll my old man if you want him to.  You see, you're a runaway
'prentice, that's all.  It ain't anything.  There ain't no harm in it.
You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut.  Bless you,
child, I wouldn't tell on you.  Tell me all about it now, that's a good
boy."

So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would
just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back
on her promise.  Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the
law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back
from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer;
he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and
stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been
three nights coming the thirty miles.  I traveled nights, and hid
daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home
lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty.  I said I believed my uncle
Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for
this town of Goshen.

"Goshen, child?  This ain't Goshen.  This is St. Petersburg.  Goshen's
ten mile further up the river.  Who told you this was Goshen?"

"Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn
into the woods for my regular sleep.  He told me when the roads forked I
must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen."

"He was drunk, I reckon.  He told you just exactly wrong."

"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now.  I got
to be moving along.  I'll fetch Goshen before daylight."

"Hold on a minute.  I'll put you up a snack to eat.  You might want it."

So she put me up a snack, and says:

"Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first?  Answer
up prompt now--don't stop to study over it.  Which end gets up first?"

"The hind end, mum."

"Well, then, a horse?"

"The for'rard end, mum."

"Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?"

"North side."

"If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with
their heads pointed the same direction?"

"The whole fifteen, mum."

"Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country.  I thought maybe you was
trying to hocus me again.  What's your real name, now?"

"George Peters, mum."

"Well, try to remember it, George.  Don't forget and tell me it's
Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander
when I catch you.  And don't go about women in that old calico.  You do a
girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe.  Bless you, child,
when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch
the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it;
that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other
way.  And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe
and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss
your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder,
like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the
wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy.  And, mind
you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees
apart; she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the
lump of lead.  Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the
needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain.  Now trot
along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if
you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me,
and I'll do what I can to get you out of it.  Keep the river road all the
way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river
road's a rocky one, and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to
Goshen, I reckon."