Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain, W. Bill Czolgosz

even sure I'm here. I gots to touch myself to know, an’ even dat don't always work."
    I know from pap's stories that getting’ bit by a rattler feels like someone stickin’ a white-hot poker up inside you. An’ here was Jim just sittin’ like a dull lobcock, not really very upset at all, like pap woulda bin.
    Still, Jim was troubled a bit. He reminded me of the young bagger what I shot, an’ how he was all rough and missin’ parts. He says he had to worry ‘bout the same problem for himself. He says, “If'n my foot gits ‘nfected, it might just fall off of me. And then I be hoppin’ ‘round like a fool."
    I says, “Aren't you alreafy infected? With death, I mean?"
    "I doubt it's the same, Huck."
    "It smells about the same to me."
    Jim sucked and sucked at the whisky jug, thinkin’ that fillin’ himself with spirit might ward off the bad humors. His foot swelled up a wee bit, and some black juice oozed out. He din’ get drunk though, an’ when he relieved himself it was still pure whisky what came out of him.
    Jim stayed laid up for four days and nights. He din’ wanna take no chances. He said he wanted to keep his feet as long as possible. There was no serious swelling. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool.
    Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as white as snow and makes a good fry.
    Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around all day to get the hang of the things, and