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They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day soft, mild, and clear; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs.
It is only necessary to state that she removed the mop from the hands of the quaking menial and fairly swabbed him out into the thick of the rainstorm.
The table, with its breakfast debris, was as she had left it. In the kitchen the coffeepot stood on the gas stove. She was home. She was safe. She ran up the stairs, got out of her clothes and into gingham morning things. She flung open windows everywhere. Downstairs once more she plunged into an orgy of cleaning. Dishes, table, stove, floor, rugs. She washed, scoured, swabbed, polished.
I went on. A woman asked me to hold her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared. A girl got me to hold her harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on and so on, till I was about loaded down to the guards. Then comes a smiling old gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things. I swabbed off the perspiration and says, pretty tart
Then all flung themselves upon their knees about him and sent up a chorus of ironical wailings, and mocking supplications, whilst they swabbed their eyes with their soiled and ragged sleeves and aprons "Be gracious to us, O sweet King!" "Trample not upon thy beseeching worms, O noble Majesty!" "Pity thy slaves, and comfort them with a royal kick!"
I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck. Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since the mutiny, bore the print of many feet; and an empty bottle, broken by the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers. Suddenly the Hispaniola came right into the wind.
Well, even so, was he going to cower back into a corner? There still remained to him five days. To use them decently he must keep to the present. The big future the true future was dead. Admit it. There still remained a little future. Let him see what he could do with that. A porter came in with a mop and swabbed up the deserted floors.
She heard their voices, and they set her nerves jangling with each fresh peal of laughter, or shrill piping cry. At last the last plate and enameled cup was washed and dried. The boiler was emptied and hung upon the wall. She swabbed the table carelessly and left it to dry. Then, with a rush, she vanished into the inner room. The moments passed rapidly.
Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops from his brow with his sleeve, and said: "Where you going to dig next, after we get this one?" "I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's over yonder on Cardiff Hill back of the widow's." "I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the widow take it away from us, Tom? It's on her land." "SHE take it away!
The signs of the day's battle had been effaced, the decks had been swabbed, and order was restored above and below. A group of men squatting about the main hatch were drowsily chanting, their hardened natures softened, perhaps, by the calm and beauty of the night. They were the men of the larboard watch, waiting for eight bells which was imminent.
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