oggles on,
had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a
spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then
the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for
an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say,
"Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like
that, Huckleberry--set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say,
"Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry--why don't you try to
behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I
was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was
to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She
said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the
whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well,
I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my
mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only
make trouble, and wouldn't do no good.
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good
place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all
day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think much
of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would
go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad about
that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. By
and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then everybody
was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it
on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to
think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I
most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled
in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing
about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about
somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper
something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so it made the
cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of
a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's
on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in
its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so
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