哈克贝里·费恩历险记

哈克贝里·费恩历险记 哈克贝里·费恩历险记 If you've read "Tom Sawer", you'll know a lot about me. But if you haven't , it doesn't matter because now I'm going to tell you about myself. My mother died soon after I was born and my father,a drunkard, treated me badly. He beat me so often that I ran away from him and lived like a wild boy in the woods. The naughtiest boys of the town were my friends and the chief of them was Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer and I had many exciting adventures together and a great deal of fun. However, those happy times came to an end when Widow Douglas, in the kindness of her heart, took me into her house , intending to bring me up as her son. Widow Douglas was very kind to me but I was unhappy in her house. I felt that I was in prison. I had to wash every day,to put on clean clothes and I even had to wear shoes . I couldn't eat when I liked but only at fixed meal-times. When Widow Douglas rang a bell, I had to sit down at a table, using a knife and fork to eat. I had to go to bed early and stay in a bed all through the night. This was hard for me because I was used to sleeping in the woods or wandering about the streets at night-time. Window Douglas's sister, Miss Watson, an old maid with glasses, came to live with her, and I didn't like her at all. She made me learn spelling for hours. I found this very dull and I just couldn't sit still . "Don't put your feet up, Huckleberry,"she would say. "Sit up straight, boy." "Don't yawn like that." "Do try and behave." I bore this as long as I could and then I ran away to the woods, where I felt free. It was Tom Sawyer who persuaded me to go back to Widow Douglas's again. He found out where I was hiding and came to me and said, "Huck, I'm going to start a band of robbers.I'm letting Joe Harper join, and Ben Rogers as well. You can join too,Huck ,if you go back to Widow Douglas's.Think it over, Huck." I thought it over and, in the end, went back to the widow's house and even to school. The signal for the first meeting of the band came late one night. I was sitting by my bedroom window, feeling lonely and miserable. In the distance an owl was crying about somebody who was dead. In the yard a dog was howling about somebody who was going to die. The clock in the town struck twelve, and then all was still. Suddenly I heard the sound of a branch breaking in the dark among the trees. Something was moving down there. Soon I heard a faint "me-ow, me-ow". How glad I felt!Tom Sawyer had come for me. "Me-ow,me-ow," I answered as softly as I could. Quickly I put out the light, climbed out of the window on to the shed, and slipped down to the ground where Tom was waiting for me. We hurried to the bank of the river where Joe Harper, Ben Rogers and three other boys were waiting.Then we all climbed into a boat and rowed to a cave. It was damp and cold in the cave but we lit our candles and sat down in high spirits. "Now we'll start this band of robbers," Tom Sawyer began. "Everybody that wants to join has got to swear to keep the rules and write his name in blood. Afterwards he's got to kill anybody who hurts any member of the band." "Hurrah!" we all creed. "That will be fun." Ben Rogers, who had a practical mind, said,"I'd like to know exactly what our gang's going to do. What's our line of business?" "We put masks on and stop carriages on the road," Tom explained. "We rob the people of their watches and their money . Sometimes we bring them back to the cave and keep them here till they're ransomed." "Ransomed?What's that?" "I don't know.But that's what they do in books." "But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?" "Well,Idon'tknow.Perhaps 'ransomed' means keeping the people till they're dead." "That's silly . They'll eat up all our food and they'll keep on trying to get away." "No, they won't. There'll be a guard watching them all the time. He'll shoot them down if they move a finger." "A guard! That's clever-I don't think!Who's going to sit up all night watching them?" "Well, That's how it is in books." "What about the women? Do we kill them right away?" "Ben Rogers!"Tom exclaimed in disgust, "If I was as silly as you are, I'd keep my mouth shut. The Wolf and the Kid There was once a little kid whose growing horns made him think he was a grown-up Billy Goat and able to take care of himself. So one evening when the flock started home from the pasture and his mother called, the Kid paid no heed and kept right on nibbling the tender grass. A little later when he lifted his head, the flock was gone. He was all alone. The sun was sinking. Long shadows came creeping over the ground. A chilly little wind came creeping with them making scary noises in the grass. The Kid shivered as he thought of the terrible Wolf. Then he started wildly over the field, bleating for his mother. But not half way, near a clump of trees, there was the Wolf!