Wednesday, October 31, 2018

How do you get rid of a wart according to Huckleberry and Tom?

Huck and Tom describe their cure for warts in chapter 6: spunk-water, a bean, and a dead cat.
Tom runs into Huck (at that time, known to him by reputation only) on the street, carrying a dead cat. He asks him what dead cats are good for. When Huck replies, "cure warts with," Tom says he knows something better: spunk-water.
They get into a disagreement, as Huck recites how various people conveyed the message of unsuccessfully trying spunk-water. Tom says they are liars, except the one person he doesn't know, to whom they both refer not by name but only by the n-word.
Nevertheless, Tom wants to know the method according to Bob Tanner, "the wartiest boy in town." Tom inquires about and challenges several details, then ridicules the "blame fool way" and recommends his method, with chants and rituals at midnight. Tom boasts of his own expertise at removing thousands of warts, contracted by playing with frogs.
They next discuss Tom's recommended method of taking them off with a bean, blood, and a related ritual.
Finally they get back to the subject of Tom's real curiosity, "how do you cure 'em with dead cats?"
Huck explains how this involves taking the cat into the graveyard about midnight and waiting for "a devil..., or maybe two or three," invisible but sounding like the wind,

"or maybe hear 'em talk; and when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after 'em and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm done with ye!' That'll fetch any wart.""
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/sawyr-VI.html

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