I got confused and pressed the "continue reading" link before I realized we were only supposed to time how long it took to read what was in the post, not the entire story. Luckily, I stopped the timer because I didn't know how long it would take the rest of the story to load.
And after that long prelude, the answer is...
2:37
It was my first time reading the story, and I wasn't skimming, but neither was I lingering over it.
It wouldn't have been unheard of for Huck's father to retain custody if that's what he wanted, which clearly it was. Usually children were sent to live with relatives when the mother died, but since they were regarded as little more than property, if the father demanded Huck stay with him, so it had to be.
Back to what happened to Huck's mother...in Tom Sawyer, didn't Huck tell Tom about his parents' constant fighting and how it only stopped when his mother died, or am I remembering it wrong?
I include a copyright notice on all my work. The wording of it is fairly standard:
"© 2010-2012 by the author. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without prior permission. Please be respectful of my intellectual property."
The last line has no standing whatsoever, by the way. It's just a little dig at those who would steal my work or mine it for ideas so they don't have to come up with anything new themselves.
Well, they're gone, I see.
I would have appreciated a wee bit more notice, since I no longer visit Lush every day and didn't know this was happening until after it was done. As a former moderator, I had some sent messages I was saving as "official" Lush correspondence should any questions about them arise in the future. Oh well, c'est la vie, I suppose.
That was very well put, redlips.
When I originally answered the question, I was thinking in terms of what a reader might learn about my own personal sexual proclivities and practices in my writing, which is very little. However, I agree with others that one could piece together a fair amount about my personality by carefully reading what I've written.
