Now I've learnt lots of truck in my life "thus far," like Judge Thatcher says all the time. I learnt the right way to borrow a chicken, how to cure a wart with a dead cat though I don't rightly recommend that since it causes all kinds of trouble like you don' even want t'know so don't be askin' me nothin' 'bout it, I learnt not to whitewash Tom Sawyer's fence jus' a'cause he reckons he's smarter than you is (he ain' smarter than me, I tell you right now), an' you know, I even learnt which kind of a berry is a huckleberry, though I reckon somehow I'd always knowed that somewhere in me, bein' one myself'n all.
Really, one of the most useful things in my life I learnt is that ladies of a certain age is perrillus, another Judge word, that one is.
I was jus' a settin' out one eve'n and here comes ol' Widow, and she's real nice and I like her just fine and I'm powerful grateful she's took me in like she done since I hain't got no family 'cept for pap and golly if I know where that goat has got hisself to now, and Widow, she's always been real good to me, she don't cowhide me none and she makes sure I got enough to eat. So she says, "Huckleberry, you're settin' out here all bys your lonesome, wouldn't you be wantin' some ice cream?"
An', well, usually I would say, "Why, yes'm, and thank'ee kindly," but afore I got the words ready there's Miss Watson and she says, "Now, that boy ain't in need of no ice cream, what he wants's t'learn about Jee-suss!" An' that is how she said it too, I tell you on my life, just like a wil' sorta JEE-SUSS, yep, 'bout like that, like somethin' done a got a hold of her. Father, son, Holy Ghost, my foot'r my grandmah, somethin' 'long them lines there.
"Now sister," says Widow, settin' down all a-close t'me an' puttin' her skinny ol' arm 'round me like I were her own son, "our Huckleberry (an' the way she says 'our Huckleberry' it were just like them two was my mam and pap) is a growin' boy and he'll be needin' some ice cream now'n agin."
Well, that let old Miss Watson out, and she got to talkin' on Jee-suss and how I was on my way to Hellfire'n tarnation, but Widow, all she wanted to do was fetch me a bit of ice cream, an' I'd say bless her heart but I never know if'n that's a good thing or if'n it ain't, an' them two ladies got to a-bickerin' and a-banterin' like nothin' you never seen in your natural life, nor'n the unnatural one. Sure, I'd a been real glad to git some ice cream, I like ice cream, va-nilla is my real fav'rite, but I were too skeered then to be a-thenkin' on ice cream worth nothin'. Miss Watson was a-prattlin' on about Jee-suss'n Saytin an' wavin' her ol' ham arms ever'where, an' Widow would tell Jim to git me some ice cream but to see the face of that nigger when Miss Watson says he was hers an' he best not be list'nin to somethin' Widow bes sayin', I coulda laughed a'cause he looked real skeered hisself.
I think, you know, I'd take an ice cream any old time, but really I'd 'a rather been in my barrel then, since crickets, toads, an'dogs ain' nothin' but nothin' when you got two ladies goin' at it like they was.
Finally I jus' says to Jim, "You know where the ice cream's at?" an' he nods so we went and got some ourselfs. An' we was settin' in the cellar, each a us with a spoon and he agreed that yep, ice cream beat old ladies, barrels, old ladies, andthe band most of all.
An' that's all I's gonna say, since that were a great bit more work to write out'n all than I reckont it were an' I gots me some dirt t'be rollin' 'round in'r somethin', I's purdy sure.