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THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. |
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up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By-and-by he says :
"Starchy clothes—very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, don't you ? "
"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.
"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on con-siderble many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say; can read and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't ? 7'11 take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey ?—who told you you could ? "
"The widow. She told me."
" The widow, hey ?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a thing that ain't none of her business ?"
"Nobody never told her."
" Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that school, you hear ? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear ? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't, before they died. / can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it—you hear ? Say—lemme hear you read."
I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says :
"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty ; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son."
He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says :
"What's this?" |
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