The window was open, so I knew Pap had climbed in using the shed.
For a while we just looked at each other.
I used to be scared of Pap all the time because he beat me so much.
I was scared now, for a minute, but then I looked at him more closely.
Pap was about fifty years old now, and he looked his age.
His skin was as white as a fish belly, and he had long tangled greasy black hair.
His clothes were just rags, and his toes stuck out through the ends of his boots.
Finally Pap said, "Those are starchy clothes you're wearing.
You're educated too, they say—you can read and write.
You think you're better than your father now, don't you, because I can't read?
Who told you that you could do this foolishness, huh?"
"The Widow Douglas. She told me," I said.
"The widow, huh? Well, I'll teach her not to interfere.
And listen to me. You drop that school or I'll give you a beating.
I won't let people bring up a boy to think he's better than his own father! Say, let me hear you read."
I picked up a book and began to read aloud.
After half a minute, he knocked the book out of my hand.
"It's true," he said. "You can do it."
Then he went on, "I see you have a bed, a mirror, and a carpet on the floor—while your own father has to sleep with the pigs.
I've been in town for two days, and I keep hearing that you're rich. That's why I came."
"I don't have any money," I said.
"That's a lie. Judge Thatcher is keeping it for you.
You get me that money tomorrow. I want it!"
Then Pap made me give him the dollar I had in my pocket.
He said he was going to town to get some whiskey.
The next day Pap was drunk. He went to Judge Thatcher's and threatened him, but Judge Thatcher wouldn't give him the money.
Judge Thatcher and the Widow Douglas wanted to take me away from Pap and have one of them be my guardian.
There was a new judge in court, however, who had just come to town.
He didn't know what my father was like.
The judge said that the courts shouldn't split up families.
He said that I had to stay with Pap.
As soon as my father heard this, he told me that he'd beat me until I was covered with bruises unless I got him some money.
I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher and gave it to Pap, and he used the money to get drunk.
Later at night he made so much noise in the street that he was arrested and put in jail for a week.
When Pap got out of jail, the new judge still thought he could help him.
He took Pap into his own home, fed him, and gave him new clothes.
Pap cried and promised that he would become a better man.
The judge and his family believed him, but after a couple of days, my father traded his new coat for whiskey and got drunk again.
He fell off the judge's porch and broke his arm in two places.
After that, the judge stopped trying to help Pap.
I still lived at the Widow Douglas' house, and I still went to school.
But when Pap's arm was healed, he started chasing me again and demanding money.
If I didn't have any, he'd hit me.
So I started to borrow money from Judge Thatcher and give it to Pap.
Then he'd buy whiskey, get drunk, and be sent to jail for a few days. This went on for a while.
Finally, one day in the spring, Pap grabbed me and took me up the river in a small boat.
We landed at a place where there were no houses—just an old log hut hidden in the woods.
Pap kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run away.
He always locked the door and he put the key under his head when he slept.
We fished and hunted, and that was how we got food.
Sometimes Pap locked me in the cabin and traveled down the river to a store.
There he traded our fish and the animals we killed for whiskey.
I began to enjoy my new lazy life with no books or studying.
Two months went by and my clothes were all dirty rags again.
I couldn't understand how I'd ever liked my life at the widow's house, where I had to wash, eat off a plate, and go to bed at a regular time.
But Pap's behavior became worse. He beat me so much that I had bruises all over me.
One time he went away and left me locked up for three days.
I made up my mind that I would have to get away from him. But how?