Table of Contents

You see a pirate don’t have to do anything, Joe, when he’s ashore, but a hermit
he has to be praying considerable, and then he don’t have any fun, anyway, all
by himself that way.” “O yes, that’s so,” said Joe, “but I hadn’t thought much
about it, you know.

I’d a good deal ruther be a pirate, now that I’ve tried it.”
“You see,” said Tom, “people don’t go much on hermits, now-a-days, like they
used to in old times, but a pirate’s always respected. And a hermit’s got to sleep
on the hardest place he can find, and put sack-cloth and ashes on his head, and
stand out in the rain, and-” “What does he put sack-cloth and ashes on his head
for?” inquired Huck.

“I dono. But they’ve got to do it. Hermits always do. You’d have to do that if you
was a hermit.” “Dern’d if I would,” said Huck.

“Well what would you do?” “I dono. But I wouldn’t do that.” “Why Huck,
you’d have to. How’d you get around it?” “Why I just wouldn’t stand it. I’d run
away.” “Run away! Well you would be a nice old slouch of a hermit. You’d be a
disgrace.” The Red-Handed made no response, being better employed. He had
finished gouging out a cob, and now he fitted a weed stem to it, loaded it with
tobacco, and was pressing a coal to the charge and blowing a cloud of fragrant
smoke-he was in the full bloom of luxurious contentment. The other pirates
envied him this majestic vice, and secretly resolved to acquire it shortly.
Presently Huck said: “What does pirates have to do?”

Tom said: “O they have just a bully time-take ships, and burn them, and get the
money and bury it in awful places in their island where there’s ghosts and
things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships-make ‘em walk a plank.”
“And they carry the women to the island,” said Joe; “they don’t kill the women.”
“No,” assented Tom, “they don’t kill the women-they’re too noble. And the
women’s always beautiful, too.” “And don’t they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh,
no! All gold and silver and di’monds,” said Joe, with enthusiasm.

“Who?” said Huck.
“Why the pirates.” Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.
“I reckon I ain’t dressed fitten for a pirate,” said he, with a regretful pathos in his
voice; “but I ain’t got none but these.” But the other boys told him the fine
clothes would come fast enough, after they should have begun their adventures.
They made him understand that his poor rags would do to begin with, though it
was customary for wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe.

Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the eyelids of
the little waifs. The pipe dropped from the fingers of the Red-Handed, and he
slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the weary. The Terror of the Seas and
the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main had more difficulty in getting to sleep.
They said their prayers inwardly, and lying down, since there was nobody there
with authority to make them kneel and recite aloud; in truth they had a mind not
to say them at all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as that, lest
they might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from Heaven. Then at
once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep-but an