When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head downbetween his knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging overthe steering oar.The other oar was smashed off, and the raftwas littered up with leaves and branches and dirt.So she’dhad a rough time.I made fast and laid down under Jim’s nose on the raft, and begun to gap, 7 and stretch my fists out against Jim, andsays:
"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep?Why didn’t you stir meup?"
"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck?En you ain’dead-you ain’drowned-you’s back agin?It’s too good fortrue, honey, it’s too good for true.Lemme look at you, chile, lemme feel o’you.No,you ain’dead?you’s back agin, ’liveen soun’, jis de same ole Huck-de same ole Huck, thanksto goodness!"
"What’s the matter with you, Jim?You been a drinking?"
"Drinkin’?Has I ben a drinkin’?Has I had a chance tobe a drinkin’?"
"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"
"How does I talk wild?"
"How?why, haint you been talking about my coming back, and all that stuff, as if I’d been gone away?"
" Huck - Huck Finn, you look me in de eye ;look me inde eye.Hain’t you ben gone away?"
"Gone away?Why, what in the nation do you mean?Ihain’t been gone anywheres.Where would I go to?"
"Well, looky here, boss, dey’s sumf’n wrong, dey is.Is I me,or who is I?Is I heah, or whah is I?Now dat’s what Iwants to know?"
"Well, I think you’re here, plain enough, but I think you’reatangle-headed old fool, Jim."
"I is, is I?Well you answer me dis.Didn’t you tote outde line in de canoe, fer to make fas’to de tow-head?"
"No, I didn’t.What tow-head?I hain’t seen no tow-head?"
"You hain’t seen no tow-head?Looky here-didn’t deline pull loose en de raf’go a hummin’down de river, enleave you en de canoe behine in de fog?"
"What fog?"
"Why de fog.De fog dat’s ben aroun’all night.En didn’tyou whoop, en didn’t I whoop, tell we got mix’up in de is-lands en one un us got los’en ’tother one was jis’as goodas los’, ’kase he
didn’know whah he wuz?En didn’t I bustup agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible time en mos’git drownded?Now ain’dat so, boss-ain’t it so?You an-swer me dat."
"well, this is too many for me, Jim.I hain’t seen no fog,nor no islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing.I been settlinghere talking with you all night till you went to sleep aboutten minutes
ago, and I reckon I done the same.You couldn’ta got drunk in that time, so of course you’ve been dreaming."
" Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten min-utes?"
"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn’tany of it happen."
"But Huck, it’s all jis’as plain to me as-"
"It don’t make no difference how plain it is, there ain’t noth-ing in it.I know, because I’ve been here all the time."
Jim didn’t say nothing for about five minutes, but set therestudying over it.Then he says:
"Well, den, I reck’n I did dream it, Huck;but dog mycats ef it ain’t de powerfullest dream I ever see.En I hain’tever had no dream b’fo’dat’s tired me like dis one."
"Oh, well, that’s all right, because a dream does tire abody like everything, sometimes.But this one was a staving8dream-tell me all about it, Jim."