超8 · Lesson 8

1第 8 页

My name is Huckleberry Finn. I had an adventure with my friend Tom Sawyer, and we made a lot of money. Judge Thatcher invested the money for us so we wouldn't grow up to be poor.

2第 8 页

I was homeless, so the Widow Douglas took me in. She and her sister, Miss Watson, gave me new clothes and taught me good manners, but I really disliked them and missed my poor but happy old days very much.

3第 9 页

There, Tom formed a gang called "Tom Sawyer's Gang", with plans to find money. Each member had to promise absolute loyalty to the gang and keep its secrets hidden from everyone, including their own families. Failure to do so would result in them and their families being hurt. To seal the oath, we each made a mark on the paper with our own blood. Tom then told us to meet again the following week to decide our target.

4第 9 页

I called my father "Pap".

5第 9 页

Even though he had been away for a long time, I didn't want to see him because he often beat me.

6第 10 页

Several months passed, and winter came. I was getting used to school and my life with the Widow Douglas. One morning during breakfast, I accidentally knocked over the salt shaker, causing the salt to spill. It's believed that spilling salt brings bad luck. As expected, I noticed some fresh footprints in the new snow, along with a boot marked with a cross. I instantly knew who it belonged to.

7第 10 页

I quickly went to Judge Thatcher and gave him all my money without explaining the reason. Then, I found Jim, who had a special magic hairball that could tell the future. Jim listened to the ball and told me that I would face many problems soon.

8第 11 页

He came in through the window. We looked at each other for a while. Then he said "You dress well and can read and write. Do you think you're better than me because I can't read? Who told you to act this way?"

9第 11 页

"My boy will not think he's better than his own father! Read something," he ordered.

10第 11 页

I started reading. He quickly slapped the book from my hand. "So it's true," he grumbled. Then he look around my room and said, "You have a nice bed and a carpet, while I sleep with pigs. I heard you're rich, and that's why I'm here."

11第 11 页

Once set free, the new judge tried to help him by giving him food and clothes. But my father just sold his new clothes for whiskey. He fell off the judge's porch, breaking his arm. That's when the judge stopped helping him.

12第 12 页

One day in the spring, my dad took me on a boat ride up the river. We finally came to a cabin in the woods. We caught fish and hunted animals for food, and he locked me up when he went to the store for whiskey. Surprisingly, I didn't miss the days when I had to go to school and behave myself with the Widow Douglas, and I enjoyed the new lazy life. But my dad had a bad temper and regularly hit me, so I made up my mind to leave him and find a safer place.

13第 12 页

I searched all over the cabin and only found an old rusty saw. I planned to saw through the log to make a hole, from which I would escape when Pap got drunk. I'd take Pap's gun and live by hunting and fishing. I'd go to a place where neither Pap nor the Widow Douglas would ever find me.

14第 13 页

I shot a wild pig, smashed the cabin door into pieces with the ax, and spread the pig's blood over the floor, making it look as if robbers had come to the cabin, broken down the door, and killed me with an ax.

15第 13 页

Afterwards, I threw the pig into the river. Another thing I did was to drag the sack full of stones through the dirt so that it left a trail of a "body" dragged all the way down to the river. To be safer, I intentionally dragged a sack leaking grain all the way from the cabin to the lake. If anyone searched for my body, they might search the river first, but they would eventually give up. If they decided to chase the robbers, they would follow the trail of grain to the lake.

16第 14 页

I guessed they had stopped looking for me, so I went back to the canoe and got some food. At night, I put up a tent with my blanket, and lit a campfire. I spent the next three days the same way, feeding on fish and berries. On the fourth day, I explored the island and found the smoking campfire left by someone else. The idea that I was not alone there frightened me terribly.

17第 14 页

It was almost morning time. With a gun in my hand, I moved quietly through the woods, and saw the light of a campfire. As I crept closer, I saw a man lying on the ground with a blanket over him. To my surprise, it was Miss Watson's black slave Jim!

18第 15 页

He overheard Miss Watson would sell him to a slave trader, and then he ran away. He planned to float with a raft of logs down the river, but men came after him and were looking for him, so he had to stay on this island until the men stopped their searching.

19第 15 页

On the island, Jim and I climbed up and found a big rock cave at the top of a hill. We hid the canoe under the willow branches on the shore and moved all our things to the cave. It was a good hiding place and we could keep things dry when it rained. Now we had our own safe shelter.

20第 15 页

A few days later, I found a rattlesnake in the cave and killed it. Then I played a trick on Jim. I left the dead snake curled up on Jim's bed as if it were still alive.

21第 16 页

When it was time for bed, Jim let out a scream. The dead snake's mate crawled in and bit his foot! I killed it with a stick. Jim believed in old-fashioned ways to save himself from a snake's poison. He asked me to roast the snake and give him a piece to eat. He also told me to make a bracelet from the snake's rattles and tie it around his wrist to keep him safe.

22第 16 页

Jim's foot and leg swelled up and stayed that way for four days. On the fifth day, he began to feel better. But Jim warned me that the bad luck had not come to its end.

23第 16 页

The woman invited me into her house. I made up a story about why I was here. Then she began to talk about Huckleberry Finn, who was recently murdered. I pretended to inquire who the killer might be. She told me the boy's father or the runaway slave, Jim, probably killed the poor boy.

24第 17 页

I woke Jim up and told him we had to leave.

25第 17 页

Before we left, I built a campfire to fool the men who were looking for Jim. Then we stayed on a raft that we found several days ago. We put all our things and the canoe onto the raft, and Jim even built a hut on it. At day time, we watched the big steamboats in the shade. At night, we floated down the river.

26第 17 页

I peeked into a cabin on the wrecked boat and saw a man tied up and two men arguing whether to shoot him or not. Finally, they decided to leave him there to drown as they rowed away.

27第 17 页

But Jim stopped me. "Huck, our raft is gone! It floated away!"