Three or four months went by and it was winter. I had been to school most of the time. I could now spell and read, and write a little.
At first I hated the school, but later I only ran away when I got very tired. I got used to living at the widow's, too. Sleeping in a bed was difficult, but, before the cold weather, I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes. So that was a rest. I liked the old ways best, but I began to like the new ones, too. Widow Douglas said I was improving slowly.
Then one morning I spilt the salt at breakfast. I tried to throw some of it over my left shoulder to keep away the bad luck, but Miss Watson stopped me. 'Take your hands away, Huckleberry. What a mess you're always making!'
So I felt worried. I went down the front garden and through the gate. There was an inch of snow on the ground and I saw somebody's footprints.
The person had come up the hill, stood at the gate, and then gone on around the garden fence without coming in. It was strange, somehow. I bent down to look at the tracks. There was a cross on the left boot heel, made with big nails, to keep off the devil!
In a second, I was running down the hill to Judge Thatcher's house.
More of this story in
Huckleberry Finn
by
Mark Twain
Oxford Progressive English Readers
Grade 3
ISBN 0 19 586 310 0
This text is copyright Oxford University Press 1995.
If you can read this sample easily, you can enjoy any Oxford Progressive English Reader from Grade 1 through to Grade 3.