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them laid in, and all the other things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as

Jim's was when they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like

the spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him and make

it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats, and the snakes, and

the grindstone, there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and when there

was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was always lively, he said, be-

cause they never all slept at one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes

was asleep the rats was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on

watch, so he always had one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang hav-

ing a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place, the spiders would

take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out, this time, he

wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.

Well, by the end of three weeks, everything was in pretty good shape. The

shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every

time a rat bit Jim he would get up and ssssssssss

write a little in his journal whilst the ink

was fresh; the pens was made, the in- ssssssssss

scriptions and so on was all carved on ssssssssss

the grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in ssssssssss

two, and we had etup the sawdust, and it ssssssssss

give us a most amazing stomach-ache. ssssssssss

We reckoned we was all going to die, but ssssssssss

didn't. It was the most undigestible ssssssssss

sawdust I ever see; and Tom said the ssssssssss

same. But as I was sayingi, we'd got all ssssssssss

the work done, now, at last; and we was ssssssssss

all pretty much fagged out, too, but ssssssssss

mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a ssssssssss

couple of times to the plantation below ssssssssss

Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because

there warn't no such plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St.

Louis and New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones, it

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