At the "State of Mark Twain Studies" conference in Elmira there were a couple
of papers which referred to Chapter XXXV of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and the action of the boys in "smouching the knives".

Two separate speakers pronounced the word "smOWch" rendering the portion in
question to sound like "ow", the cry of pain.

Meanwhile, through the audience, or at least the part where I sat, there was
a murmur of "sMOOch", with the middle portion of the word articulated to
sound like the utterance of a contented cow. One person even had a developed
etymology, explaining that the word "smouch" derived from "mooch"= to borrow.

Is there any authority for pronounciation of this word?

Dennis Kelly