Huckleberry Finn

Chapter One

My name is Huck.

There is a book about me and Tom Sawyer.

A man named Mark Twain wrote it.

He told the truth.

He stretched a little bit too.

Everybody stretches the truth sometimes.

At the end of that book, Tom and I found gold.

Robbers had hidden it in a cave.

We got six thousand dollars each.

A judge kept our money safe.

It made us more money every day.

Then the Widow Douglas took me in.

She wanted to make me her son.

She wanted me to be neat and proper.

But her house felt hard to live in.

Everything was too neat.

Everything was too proper.

So one day, I ran away.

I put on my old clothes.

I felt free again.

But Tom Sawyer found me.

He was starting a robber club.

He said I could join.

But first, I had to go back.

I had to be proper again.

So I went back to the widow.

The widow cried when she saw me.

She called me her poor lost lamb.

She put me in new clothes again.

The clothes felt tight and hot.

Then everything went back to normal.

A bell rang for supper.

You had to come right away.

You could not eat right away, though.

The widow said a little prayer first.

The food was fine.

But each food was cooked all alone.

Nothing got mixed together.

Mixed-up food tastes better, I think.

After supper, she read to me.

She told me about a man named Moses.

He was in her book.

I wanted to know more about him.

Then I found out he was dead.

A long, long time dead.

So I stopped caring about Moses.

I do not care much about dead people.

Then I wanted to smoke.

I asked the widow if I could.

She said no.

She said smoking was not clean.

She said I should stop wanting to do it.

Some people are like that.

They fuss about things they do not understand.

She fussed about Moses, who was long gone.

But she fussed at me for smoking, which felt good to me.

She took snuff herself, though.

That was fine, she said, because she did it.

Miss Watson came to live there too.

She was thin and wore glasses.

She was the widow's sister.

She tried to teach me spelling.

She worked me hard for an hour.

Then the widow said, "That is enough."

I could not have stood much more.

The next hour was very boring.

Miss Watson kept telling me what to do.

"Sit up straight, Huckleberry."

"Don't slouch, Huckleberry."

"Don't yawn like that, Huckleberry."

Then she told me about a bad place.

I said I wished I could go there.

That made her very angry.

But I did not mean to be bad.