“Come in,” the woman said. I went into the house. She told me to take a chair and sit down. I sat down. She looked at me with her small, bright eyes. She asked me for my name.
“Sarah Williams,” I said.
She asked me where I lived. I told her I lived in Hookerville. I said I walked seven miles to get here. I told her I was very tired. She asked if I was hungry. I told her I was not hungry.
I told her a story about my sick mother. I said I had no money. I told her I wanted to find my uncle, Abner Moore. She did not know him. She said she lived there for only two weeks.
The woman told me to stay for the night. She told me to take off my bonnet (a type of hat that women wore in the past). I said I wanted to rest and then leave. I said I was not afraid of the dark.
The woman said her husband would be home soon. He could walk with me to the town. Then she talked about her family and her life. Finally, she talked about my father and the murder.
She talked about me and Tom Sawyer. She said we found ten thousand dollars. She said my father was a bad man. Then she talked about my murder. I asked her who killed Huck Finn.
The woman said some people thought old Finn killed his son. Other people thought a runaway slave (a person who is owned by another person and must work for no money) named Jim did it.
Jim ran away on the same night of the murder. There was a reward of three hundred dollars for Jim. There was a reward of two hundred dollars for old Finn. People wanted to catch them.
The woman said her husband was going to Jackson’s Island tonight. She saw smoke on the island a few days ago. She thought Jim was hiding there. Her husband and another man wanted to find him.
I felt very nervous. I could not sit still. I took a needle and some thread from the table. I tried to thread the needle, but my hands shook. The woman looked at me and smiled.
She asked for my name again. I said my name was Mary Williams. She looked surprised. She said I told her my name was Sarah before. I was very worried.
I told her my name was Sarah Mary Williams. I said some people called me Sarah. I said other people called me Mary. I felt a little better, but I wanted to leave.
The woman talked about the rats in her house. She showed me a bar of lead (a heavy piece of grey metal). She threw it at a rat but she missed. She told me to try.
I threw the metal at a rat. I almost hit the rat. She said I was very good at throwing. Then she gave me some yarn (thick thread used for making clothes). She wanted me to help her.
I held out my hands for the yarn. Then she dropped the metal bar into my lap. I moved my knees together quickly to catch it. She stopped talking and looked at me.
“What is your real name?” she asked. She asked if my name was Bill, Tom, or Bob. I was very scared. I told her not to play with me. She said she would not hurt me.
She said she would help me. She thought I was a runaway apprentice (a young person who works to learn a job). She thought I ran away from a bad master. She told me to tell the truth.
I told her a new story. I said my parents were dead. I said a mean farmer treated me very badly. I stole some of his daughter’s clothes and ran away.
I told her I was going to Goshen to find my uncle. She told me this town was St. Petersburg. Goshen was ten miles away. She gave me some food for my journey.
The woman asked me questions about cows and horses. I answered the questions correctly. She knew I lived in the country. Then she told me she knew I was a boy.
She told me my name was George Peters. She gave me advice on how to act like a girl. She said girls thread needles differently. She said girls do not catch things with their knees together.
I left the house and went to my canoe (a small, narrow boat). I paddled the boat to the island. It was eleven o’clock. I went to the old camp and started a fire.
The fire was a trick to move the men to the wrong place. Then I went to the cave to find Jim. Jim was asleep on the ground. I woke him up quickly.
“Get up, Jim!” I said. “We must leave now. People are coming to catch us!”
Jim did not ask any questions. He was very scared. We put all our things on the raft (a flat boat made of long pieces of wood). We moved the raft into the river. We were very quiet and stayed in the dark.