Twain
Introduces Us to Huck Finn: from
Chapter 6 of The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer Shortly
Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of
the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the
mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless and vulgar and bad—and
because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden
society, and wished they dared to be like him. Tom was like the rest of the
respectable boys, in that he envied Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition,
and was under strict orders not to play with him. So he played with him every
time he got a chance. Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast–off clothes
of full–grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags.
His hat was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his
coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons
far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of the
trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged in the
dirt when not rolled up. Huckleberry
came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps in fine weather
and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or to church,
or call any being master or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming
when and where he chose, and stay as long as it suited him; nobody forbade
him to fight; he could sit up as late as he pleased; he was always the first
boy that went barefoot in the spring and the last to resume leather in the
fall; he never had to wash, nor put on clean clothes; he could swear
wonderfully. In a word, everything that goes to make life precious that boy
had. So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. Tom
hailed the romantic outcast: "Hello,
Huckleberry!" "Hello
yourself, and see how you like it." "What's
that you got?" "Dead
cat." |