people how to talk French." "Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?" "_No_, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a single word." "Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?" "_I_ don’t know; but it’s so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think?" "I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat is, if he warn’t white. I wouldn’t ’low no nigger to call me dat." "Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything. It’s only saying, do you know how to talk French?" "Well, den, why couldn’t he _say_ it?" "Why, he _is_ a-saying it. That’s a Frenchman’s _way_ of saying it." "Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’ ’bout it. Dey ain’ no sense in it." "Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?" "No, a cat don’t." "Well, does a cow?" "No, a cow don’t, nuther." "Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?" "No, dey don’t." "It’s natural and right for ’em to talk different from each other, ain’t it?" "’Course." "And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from _us?_" "Why, mos’ sholy it is." "Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a _Frenchman_ to talk different from us? You answer me that." "Is a cat a man, Huck?" "No." "Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man. Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?" "No, she ain’t either of them." "Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of ’em. Is a Frenchman a man?" "Yes." "_Well_, den! Dad blame it, why doan’ he _talk_ like a man? You answer me _dat!_" I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit. CHAPTER XV. We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble. Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a tow-head to tie to, for it wouldn’t do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there wasn’t anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and scared I couldn’t budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me—and then there wasn’t no raft in sight; you couldn’t see twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn’t come. I was in such a hurry I hadn’t untied 

 Prev. P 59/248 next