Michael Kadish
If you haven't read the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, then you haven't met me before, but it's really not that important. The book was written by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth...well, pretty much, but those lies aren't really a big deal. I've never seen anybody who hasn't lied at one point or another, whether it be to Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe even to Mary.
Aunt Polly (Tom's Aunt), Mary, and the widow, Mrs. Douglas are told about in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which, as I said before, sticks pretty much to the truth.
If you haven't read it, the book ends like this: Tom and I find the thieves' loot that they had hid in the cave, and it made us both very rich. We wound up with six thousand dollars apiece - in gold. It was a staggering sight to see such a huge amount of money when it was put into one pile. Judge Thatcher invested the money for us, and Tom and I each get a dollar a day, every day, in interest. It was more than we had any idea of what to do with. The widow, Mrs. Douglas, took me into her home, explaining that she would civilize me. It was a real pain living in the house with her, mostly due to how precise and perfect everything had to be. Finally, I just couldn't take it anymore, and I ran away. I put back on my old clothes, and my sugar-hogshead, and I was once again free, with no responsibilities. But, Tom Sawyer found me, and told me that he wanted to start up a band of thieves, but the only way that I might be allowed to join was to go back to the widow, and act civilized. So, I went back.
When I came back, the widow cried for me, calling me a poor lost lamb. She went on to use a lot of other names, but she never tried to insult me with them. I went back to wearing the civilized clothing she had given me, but they were so constraining, all I could do was sweat and sweat. The whole precision and attempts at perfection that I had hated started all over again. She rang a bell to indicate the beginning of dinner, and I had to be there immediately. Then, when I got to the table, I couldn't just start eating, I had to wait for the widow to bend her head down, and mumble complaints over the food. There really wasn't anything for her to complain about with the food though, well except maybe that all the different foods were cooked individually. When a barrel of odds and ends is cooked, like the meals I had been use to, all of the flavors are mixed together, and it tastes a lot better.
After dinner, she took out her book, and taught me about Moses and the Bulrushers. I really wanted to learn about this guy, but it was slowly indicated to me that this guy had actually died quite a long time ago, and I immediately lost interest. I don't care about dead people.
After a while, I wanted to smoke, and I asked if I was allowed to. She wouldn't let me. She told me that it was a nasty, dirty habit, and I should try to quit. That's just the way some people are; they're against things without knowing about them first. Here she was, ranting about this guy, Moses, who had nothing to do with her, wasn't related to her, and wasn't really important to anybody, having been dead for so long, yet she finds fault in me for wanting to do something worthwhile. Of course, she took snuff. Of course THAT was ok, because SHE did it.
Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid with thick glasses who had just moved in with Mrs. Douglas, gave an attempt to educate me with a spelling book. She pushed me to the limit for an hour, before the widow made her ease up. I wouldn't have been able to take it much longer. For the next hour, though, it was exceedingly boring, and I began to get fidgety. Miss Watson would then start with, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry," and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry --- sit up straight," then, after a while, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry --- why don't you try to behave?" Then she warned me about The Bad Place, and I said I wished I was there. That made her angry, but I tried to tell her I didn't mean to offend her. I just wanted to go somewhere, I needed a change, I would have gone anywhere. She said it was wicked to say what I had...
So, I signed it, and left.
Miss Watson's Bostonian nephew, Jim, had saved a hairball, about the size of a fist, that he had taken out from the fourth stomach of an ox, and he performed magic with this hairball. He said there was a spirit inside of it who knew everything. So, I went to him, and told him that I knew my father had returned, because I had seen his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, what did he want, and was he going to stay? Jim took out the hairball, said some magic words, then he held out the hairball, and dropped the hairball on the floor. It fell without much bounce, and only rolled about an inch. Jim tried it again, and then anther time, and it acted just the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it, and listened. "Bot, it's jost no use," he said that, "it wasn't tawking." He said that sometimes, the hairball refused to talk without money. I told him that I had an old, slick, counterfeit quarter, but that it wasn't any good because the brass could be seen a little bit through the silver, but even if the brass couldn't be seen, nobody would take it, because it was so slick and greasy that people would know immediately. (I decided that I wouldn't say anything about the dollar I got from the judge.) . I told him that it was pretty bad money, but that maybe the hairball would take it, because the hairball probably couldn't tell the difference. Jim smelled the coin, and bit it, and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hairball would think it was good. He said he would cut open a raw Irish potato, stick the quarter inside, and leave it there all night. The next morning, you + wouldn't be able to see the brass at all, and it wouldn't be greasy anymore, so anybody in town would take it, especially a hairball. I had known about how a potato would have doe it, but I had just forgotten about it.
Jim put the quarter under the hairball, got down, and listened again. This time, he said it would work. He told me that it could tell me my whole fortune, if I wanted it. I told him to go on with it, so the hairball spoke to Jim, and Jim repeated it for me.
"Ya ol man doen't know yet what e wants to do. Sometimes, e thanks that e'll leave, and then again, e sometimes thinks that e should stay. The best thing to do is to just sit tight, and let im decide fa imself. They aw two angels hove'ing about him. One is white and shiny, de otha one's black. De white one make im do the right thing, den de black one comes in and breaks it awl up. Na'an can tell ya which'll win. Ya'll be fun, ya a'ight. Ya going to have a lot of poblems in ya life, considable touble, but ya also'll be en considable joy. Sometimes ya goina get hut, sometimes ya gonna get sick, but evy time, ya gonna get well again. Dez two gulls flying a'ound in ya life. One's light, and de othas dak. One is rich, en de othas poa. Ya gonna ma'y de poa one fust, and de rich when de time is right. Ya wanna stay away from da wata' as much as pozbel, an don't run risks, cause it says ya gonna hang."
When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night, there sat my dad --- in person!
