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."

I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I
would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an
iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I
sweat like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it
warn't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that
stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed
in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It
had all the marks of a Sunday-school.

CHAPTER IV

Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read
and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to
six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get
any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock
in mathematics, anyway.

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.
Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got
next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to
school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the
widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house
and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the
cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and
so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting
so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was
coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she
warn't ashamed of me.

One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I
reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left
shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of
me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry;
what a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for
me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well
enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and
wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to
be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but t