Jim DID cry, and rip and dance and carry on, he was so thankful and out
of his mind for joy. It was my watch, so I had to stay by the works, but
Tom and Jim clumb down and drunk a barrel apiece, and fetched me up a
lot, and I've tasted a many a good thing in my life, but nothing that
ever begun with that water.

Then we went down and had a swim, and then Tom came up and spelled me,
and me and Jim had a swim, and then Jim spelled Tom, and me and Tom had a
foot-race and a boxing-mill, and I don't reckon I ever had such a good
time in my life. It warn't so very hot, because it was close on to
evening, and we hadn't any clothes on, anyway. Clothes is well enough in
school, and in towns, and at balls, too, but there ain't no sense in them
when there ain't no civilization nor other kinds of bothers and fussiness
around.

"Lions a-comin'!--lions! Quick, Mars Tom! Jump for yo' life, Huck!"

Oh, and didn't we! We never stopped for clothes, but waltzed up the
ladder just so. Jim lost his head straight off--he always done it
whenever he got excited and scared; and so now, 'stead of just easing the
ladder up from the ground a little, so the animals couldn't reach it, he
turned on a raft of power, and we went whizzing up and was dangling in
the sky before he got his wits together and seen what a foolish thing he
was doing. Then he stopped her, but he had clean forgot what to do next;
so there we was, so high that the lions looked like pups, and we was
drifting off on the wind.

But Tom he shinned up and went for the works and begun to slant her down,
and back toward the lake, where the animals was gathering like a