The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Chapter 26 (2)
Chapter 20 (2)
The duke said he was looking for a printing house.We found one, and it was a small business, above a carpenter's shop, but the carpenter and printer were at the sermon, and the door was unlocked.It was a dirty place, with garbage on the floor, ink splatters on the walls, and posters of horses and fleeing blacks.The duke took off his coat, and said that now he had his way.So I went out with the king, to a field sermon.

We walked for about half an hour to get there, sweating profusely because it was a damn hot day.There were 1000 people there, from a radius of more than 20 miles.The woods were full of carriages, and horses were tied everywhere. They lowered their heads to eat grass in the troughs on the carriages, stamping their hooves from time to time to drive away the flies that bit them.People built huts with branches and sold lemonade and gingerbread in them.There are also piles of watermelon, tender corn and other things to eat.The sermons were held in similar sheds, only much larger and able to accommodate many people.The stools that people sit on are made of log skin, with some holes drilled on the round side, and sticks are inserted to become stools without backrests.At one end of the shed there was a high platform on which the priests stood.The women wore sunbonnets, some in linen and wool-blend gowns, some in gingham, the younger in calico.Some young men were barefoot, and some little dolls wore only a coarse shirt.Some older women were knitting, some young men were secretly flirting with girls.

In the shed we entered first, the pastor was leading a hymn.He took the lead in singing two lines, and everyone sang a few lines along, which sounded majestic, because there were so many people, and everyone sang so vigorously; then, he led in another two lines, and everyone continued to sing along, just like that sing on.The people's voices got louder and louder, and at the end of the singing, some people's voices became humming, and some people were almost roaring.Then, the pastor began to preach, walking up and down on the podium, speaking in a serious manner, waving his arms while speaking, bending down, shouting at the top of his lungs, and opening the Bible from time to time, holding it up, so that everyone Watching it, they shouted: "This is the bronze snake that Moses made according to God's will! Everyone come and see it, and you can save your life!" Everyone shouted together: "It's beautiful! Ah-men !” He continued to preach, and the audience hummed and cried while listening, shouting amen from time to time.

"Oh, come to God, come on your knees in the front bench! Come, sinful ones! (Amen!) Come, suffering ones! (Amen!) Come, crippled and blind! (Amen!) Amen!) Come, poor, abused people! (Amen!) Come, suffering, weary people! With your wounded soul, with your penitent heart, come! Whatever your However shabby your clothes, however many sins you have committed, and however filthy your heart is, come! The holy water for washing away your sins is at your disposal, and the gates of heaven are always open for you—come in and rest in peace!" (A—— —Gate! Beautiful, beautiful, hallelujah!)

People just kept shouting.Shouting and crying drowned the priest's voice.In the crowd, people with tears on their faces stood up and squeezed desperately to the stools in the front row.All the converts crowded onto the stools in the front row of the crowd, sang and shouted loudly, and threw themselves on straw mats.People just went crazy.

As soon as I regained my senses, I saw the king running over and rushing to the podium.His voice was so loud that it overwhelmed all other voices.The pastor asked him to speak to everyone, and he just spoke.He said he was a pirate and had been a pirate in the Indian Ocean for 30 years.Having lost quite a few of the gangsters on his boat in a fight last spring, he was coming home now to recruit some men for replacements.Thank goodness he was robbed last night, thrown off a steamer, and now penniless.He said that he was happy for this, and this was the luckiest thing he had ever encountered, because now he was going to reform himself, and now he felt the happiness that he had never experienced in his life.He said that although he was so poor now, he would go on the road immediately, try to get back to the Indian Ocean, and spend the rest of his life trying to persuade the rest of the pirates to go the right way.He said that because he knew the pirates in the Indian Ocean better than anyone else, and though he was penniless and it would take a long time to get there, he must go.Every time a pirate is persuaded to change his ways, he will say to that person: "Don't thank me, this is not my credit, it is all due to those relatives who participated in the field sermon in Polk Town, they are really brothers and benefactors of mankind." —and dear preacher, pirates will never find such a true friend!"

After he finished speaking, he burst into tears, and the people also cried with him.Then, a man shouted: "Call for him, collect for him!" Five or six people immediately stood up to collect money for him, but one person shouted: "Let him take the hat and collect money in front of everyone!" !” Everyone echoed, even the pastor.

So, the king shuttled back and forth among the crowd with his hat in his hand, wiping his tears as he walked, wishing everyone, praising everyone, and thanking everyone for their kindness to the pirates far away in the sky.Now and then some very pretty girls came up to him with tears in their faces and begged to kiss him as a souvenir; for his part, he always said yes, and he and some girls kissed him five or six times in a row.People invited him to stay for a week; people wanted him to live in their homes, saying it would be an honor to them.But he said that that day was the last day of the field sermon, and it would not be of any help to them if he stayed any longer, and besides, he was anxious to rush to the Indian Ocean immediately to persuade the pirates.

When we got back to the raft, he counted the money we had collected and found that it was eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.Also, on the way back through the woods, he snatched a three-gallon jug of whiskey that had been kept under a wagon.The king said he got more money that day than he ever made in missionary work.He said a common, non-religious fellow was no match for a pirate if he wanted to fool a field preacher with his words.

The duke thought he had done a good job, but when the king came back he was ashamed of himself.He made four dollars in that little printer's shop for typesetting and printing two horse-selling posters for some peasants.He also had an advertising business worth ten dollars, and he said that if he would pay four dollars in cash in advance, he could publish the advertisement, and the man paid in a daze.There were three other subscribers who subscribed to the newspaper. The subscription price was two yuan a year. He received cash at a discounted price of fifty cents each. Bought this workshop and wanted to keep it at the lowest possible price, so cash only.He also arranged a board with a little poem written by himself, which had three stanzas, and it sounded quite beautiful. The title was: "Smash this broken heart, you cruel world".He has arranged the plate and waited for it to be printed on the machine.He said he would publish the poem for free.He got ninety-five dollars in all that day, and that's what he got from working all day.

Also, he showed us a flyer that he hadn't paid for and printed for us.There is a portrait of a fugitive black man on the flyer. The black man is carrying a wooden stick on his shoulder with a package on it. The words "a reward of $[-] for his capture" are printed under the portrait.The leaflets were all about Jim, portrayed him in the slightest, had escaped last winter from the plantation of St. Jacques, forty miles downriver from New Orleans, and possibly gone north, and if he was caught and Send it back, you can get a reward, and you can also reimburse the travel expenses.

"Listen," said the duke, "after tonight, we can go in the daytime if we like. If anyone comes towards us, we'll tie Jim hand and foot with a rope, put him in the shed, and put Show him this leaflet, and tell him that we caught it upstream, but we were too poor to afford a boat, so we had to borrow money from a friend to get this raft, and ride downriver to collect the bounty. It would have been nice for Jim to have handcuffs and shackles on, but that wouldn't be right with us tinkling poor, because it'd be like jewelry on him. The rope would fit—we've got to get it right, and It's like paying attention to the three uniforms on the stage."

We all said that the duke's plan was so ingenious that there would be no trouble walking in the daytime.We're going to run far enough that night, because we know the duke is in big trouble at that printing shop, and people are going to come after them in such a rage, and we're going to leave that little town far behind for them to catch up.After that, if we want to, we can move forward as soon as possible.

We hid and made no noise until nearly ten o'clock in the evening when we rowed out the raft.Then we avoided the town far away, drifted down quietly, and did not turn on the signal light until the town was out of sight.

At four o'clock in the morning Jim woke me up for my watch shift and said, "Huck, do you think we'll meet any other kings on our way?"

"No," I said, "I daresay not."

"That's all right," said he. "I don't care for a king or two, but that's enough. The king is a fool, and the duke isn't much better than him."

I found out that Jim always wanted him to speak French because he wanted to hear how it was said, but he said he had been in this country for so long and had been through so much that he had forgotten French .

(End of this chapter)