I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don’t Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to my self, there ain’t nothing in it. I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was “spiritual gifts.” This was too many for me, but she told me what she meant—I must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn’t see no advantage about it—except for the other people; so at last I reckoned I wouldn’t worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make a body’s mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the widow’s Providence, but if Miss Watson’s got him there warn’t no help for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong to the widow’s if he wanted me, though I couldn’t make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.

Pap he hadn’t been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn’t want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all like pap; but they couldn’t make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn’t much like a face at all. They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warn’t comfortable long, because I happened to think of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don’t float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn’t pap, but a woman dressed up in a man’s clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he wouldn’t.
We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All the boys did. We hadn’t robbed nobody, hadn’t killed any people, but only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs “ingots,” and he called the turnips and stuff “julery,” and we would go to the cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed and marked. But I couldn’t see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan (which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand “sumter” mules, all loaded down with di’monds, and they didn’t have only a guard of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up our swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them till you rotted, and then they warn’t worth a mouthful of ashes more than what they was before. I didn’t believe we could lick such a crowd of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn’t no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn’t no camels nor no elephants. It warn’t anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut.

I didn’t see no diamonds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, and elephants and things. I said, why couldn’t we see them, then? He said if I warn’t so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.

“Why,” said he, “a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church.”
“Well,” I says, “s’pose we got some genies to help us—can’t we lick the other crowd then?”
“How you going to get them?”
“I don’t know. How do they get them?”
“Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the smoke a-rolling, and everything they’re told to do they up and do it. They don’t think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it—or any other man.”
“Who makes them tear around so?”
“Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs the lamp or the ring, and they’ve got to do whatever he says. If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di’monds, and fill it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor’s daughter from China for you to marry, they’ve got to do it—and they’ve got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they’ve got to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you understand.”

“Well,” says I, “I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping the palace themselves ‘stead of fooling them away like that. And what’s more—if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp.”

“How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you’d have to come when he rubbed it, whether you wanted to or not.”
“What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then; I would come; but I lay I’d make that man climb the highest tree there was in the country.”

“Shucks, it ain’t no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don’t seem to know anything, somehow—perfect saphead.”

Bueno, por la maana la vieja seorita Watson me ech una buena bronca por lo de la ropa, pero la viuda no me ri, sino que limpi las manchas y el barro, y pareca estar tan triste que pens que si poda, me portara bien durante un tiempo. Despus la seorita Watson me llev al gabinete a rezar, pero no pas nada. Me dijo que rezase todos los das y que todo lo que pidiera se me dara. Pero no era verdad. Lo intent. Una vez consegu un sedal para pescar, pero sin anzuelos. Sin anzuelos no me vala para nada. Prob a conseguir los anzuelos tres o cuatro veces, pero no s por qu aquello no funcionaba. As que un da le ped a la seorita Watson que lo intentase por m, pero me dijo que era tonto. Nunca me explic por qu y yo nunca pude entenderlo.

Una vez fui a sentarme en el bosque a pensarlo con calma. Me dije: Si uno puede conseguir todo lo que pide cuando reza, por qu no le devuelven al dicono Winn el dinero que perdi con lo de los cerdos? Por qu no le devuelven a la viuda la cajita de plata para el rap que le robaron? Por qu no puede engordar la seorita Watson? No, me dije, todo eso no tiene sentido. Fui y se lo cont a la viuda, y me dijo que lo que poda conseguirse rezando eran los bienes espirituales. Aquello era demasiado para m, pero me explic lo que significaba: tena que ayudar a otra gente y hacer todo lo que pudiera por ellos y cuidar siempre de los dems y no pensar nunca en m mismo. Segn me pareci, aquello inclua a la seorita Watson. Fui al bosque y me lo estuve pensando mucho tiempo, pero no le vea la ventaja, salvo para la otra gente; as que por fin calcul que no me iba a preocupar ms, sino que lo olvidara. A veces la viuda me llevaba con ella y me hablaba de la Providencia de forma que se le haca a uno la boca agua, pero a lo mejor al da siguiente la seorita Watson lo volva a deshacer todo. Me pareci que poda ser que hubiera dos Providencias y que a uno, pobrecillo, le ira muy bien la Providencia de la viuda, pero que si era la de la seorita Watson, no tena nada que hacer. Me lo pens todo y calcul que si ella quera, me ira con la de la viuda, aunque tampoco vea qu iba a sacar con tenerme de su lado que no tuviera antes, dado lo ignorante y lo poca cosa y corriente que era yo.

A padre haca ms de un ao que nadie lo vea, y yo tan contento; no quera volver a verlo. Siempre me atizaba cuando estaba sereno y poda echarme mano, aunque cuando l andaba cerca yo sola largarme al bosque. Bueno, hacia entonces lo encontraron en el ro ahogado, unas doce millas arriba del pueblo, deca la gente. Por lo menos, crean que era l; decan que aquel ahogado meda igual que l y estaba vestido de harapos y llevaba el pelo muy largo, todo igual que padre, pero por la cara no saban nada, porque llevaba tanto tiempo en el agua que ya no pareca en absoluto una cara. Dijeron que flotaba de espaldas en el agua. Lo sacaron y lo enterraron en la ribera. Pero yo no me qued tranquilo mucho tiempo, porque se me ocurri una cosa. Saba muy bien que un ahogado no flota de espaldas, sino de cara. As que entonces comprend que no era padre, sino una mujer vestida de hombre. Y volv a ponerme nervioso. Pens que el viejo aparecera algn da, aunque por m ojala que no.