men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat
was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat,
when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons
far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of
the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged
in the dirt when not rolled up.
Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps
in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to
school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could
go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it
suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he
pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring
and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor
put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything
that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every harassed,
hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.
Tom hailed the romantic outcast:
Hello, Huckleberry!
Hello yourself, and see how you like it.
What s that you got?
Dead cat.
Lemme see him, Huck. My, he s pretty stiff. Where d you get him?
Bought him off n a boy.
What did you give?
I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house.
Where d you get the blue ticket?
Bought it off n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick.
50