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and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea,

so we took a smoke on it and waited. ssssssssss

There warn't nothing to do, now, but to look out sharp for the town, and not

pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it, because he'd be

a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he'd be in the slave country

again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:

"Dah she is!" ssssssssss

But it warn't. It was Jack-o-lanterns, or lightning-bugs; so he set down

again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over

trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me

all over'trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through

my head that he was most free -- and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I

couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling

me so I couldn't rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come

home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and

it staid with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to

myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful

owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you

knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told

somebody." That was so -- I couldn't get around that, noway. That was where

it pinched. Conscience says to me, "What had poor Miss Watson done to you,

that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one

single word? What did that poor old woman do to you, that you could treat

her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you

your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That's

what she done." ssssssssss

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I

fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting

up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every time he danced

around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went through me like a shot, and I thought

if it was Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying

how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to

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