the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 41-42 | study guide | cliffsnotes

The doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I
got him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island
hunting yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found,
and about midnight he must 'a' kicked his gun in his dreams, for it
went off and shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there
and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because
we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks.

"Who is your folks?" he says.

"The Phelpses, down yonder."

"Oh," he says. And after a minute, he says:

"How'd you say he got shot?"

"He had a dream," I says, "and it shot him."

"Singular dream," he says.

So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But
when he see the canoe he didn't like the look of her--said she was big
enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says:

"Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy
enough."

"What three?"

"Why, me and Sid, and--and--and _the guns_; that's what I mean."

"Oh," he says.

But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head,
and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one. But they was
all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait
till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better
go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to. But I
said I didn't; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he
started.

I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix
that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is?
spos'n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?--lay
around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what
_I'll_ do. I'll wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to go
any more I'll get down there, too, if I swim; and we'll take and tie
him, and keep him, and shove out down the river; and when Tom's done
with him we'll give him what it's worth, or all we got, and then let
him get ashore.

So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I
waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the
doctor's house, but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time
or other, and warn't back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad
for Tom, and I'll dig out for the island right off. So away I shoved,
and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's
stomach! He says:

"Why, _Tom!_ Where you been all this time, you rascal?"

"_I_ hain't been nowheres," I says, "only just hunting for the runaway
nigger--me and Sid."

"Why, where ever did you go?" he says. "Your aunt's been mighty
uneasy."

"She needn't," I says, "because we was all right. We followed the men
and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we
heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and
crossed over, but couldn't find nothing of them; so we cruised along
up-shore till we got kind of tired and beat out; and tied up the canoe
and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago; then we
paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid's at the post-office to
see what he can hear, and I'm a-branching out to get something to eat
for us, and then we're going home."

So then we went to the post-office to get "Sid"; but just as I
suspicioned, he warn't there; so the old man he got a letter out of
the office, and we waited awhile longer, but Sid didn't come; so the
old man said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he
got done fooling around--but we would ride. I couldn't get him to let
me stay and wait for Sid; and he said there warn't no use in it, and I
must come along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right.

When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and
cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern
that don't amount to shucks, and said she'd serve Sid the same when he
come.

And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers' wives, to dinner;
and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the
worst; her tongue was a-going all the time. She says:

"Well, Sister Phelps, I've ransacked that-air cabin over, an' I
b'lieve the nigger was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell--didn't I,
Sister Damrell?--s'I, he's crazy, s'I--them's the very words I said.
You all hearn me: he's crazy, s'I; everything shows it, s'I. Look at
that-air grindstone, s'I; want to tell _me't_ any cretur 't's in his
right mind 's a goin' to scrabble all them crazy things onto a
grindstone? s'I. Here sich 'n' sich a person busted his heart; 'n'
here so 'n' so pegged along for thirty-seven year, 'n' all
that--natcherl son o' Louis somebody, 'n' sich everlast'n rubbage.
He's plumb crazy, s'I; it's what I says in the fust place, it's what I
says in the middle, 'n' it's what I says last 'n' all the time--the
nigger's crazy--crazy 's Nebokoodneezer, s'I."

"An' look at that-air ladder made out'n rags, Sister Hotchkiss," says
old Mrs. Damrell; "what in the name o' goodness _could_ he ever want
of--"

"The very words I was a-sayin' no longer ago th'n this minute to
Sister Utterback, 'n' she'll tell you so herself. Sh-she, look at
that-air rag ladder, sh-she; 'n' s'I, yes, look at it, s'I--what
_could_ he 'a' wanted of it, s'I. Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she--"

"But how in the nation'd they ever _git_ that grindstone _in_ there,
_anyway?_ 'n' who dug that-air _hole?_ 'n' who--"

"My very _words_, Brer Penrod! I was a-sayin'--pass that-air sasser o'
m'lasses, won't ye?--I was a-sayin' to Sister Dunlap, jist this
minute, how _did_ they git that grindstone in there? s'I. Without
_help,_ mind you--'thout _help! Thar's_ where 'tis. Don't tell _me,_
s'I; there _wuz_ help, s'I; 'n' ther' wuz a _plenty_ help, too, s'I;
ther's ben a _dozen_ a-helpin' that nigger, 'n' I lay I'd skin every
last nigger on this place but _I'd_ find out who done it, s'I;
moreover, s'I--"

"A _dozen_ says you!--_forty_ couldn't 'a' done everything that's been
done. Look at them case-knife saws and things, how tedious they've
been made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with 'm, a week's work for
six men: look at that nigger made out'n straw on the bed; and look
at--"

"You may _well_ say it, Brer Hightower! It's jist as I was a-sayin' to
Brer Phelps, his own self. S'e, what do _you_ think of it, Sister
Hotchkiss? s'e. Think o' what, Brer Phelps? s'I. Think o' that bed-leg
sawed off that a way? s'e? _Think_ of it? s'I. I lay it never sawed
_itself_ off, s'I--somebody _sawed_ it, s'I; that's my opinion, take
it or leave it, it mayn't be no 'count, s'I, but sich as 't is, it's
my opinion, s'I, 'n' if anybody k'n start a better one, s'I, let him
_do_ it, s'I, that's all. I says to Sister Dunlap, s'I--"

"Why, dog my cats, they must 'a' ben a house-full o' niggers in there
every night for four weeks to 'a' done all that work, Sister Phelps.
Look at that shirt--every last inch of it kivered over with secret
African writ'n done with blood! Must 'a' ben a raft uv 'm at it right
along, all the time, amost. Why, I'd give two dollars to have it read
to me; 'n' as for the niggers that wrote it, I 'low I'd take 'n' lash
'm t'll--"

"People to _help_ him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you'd _think_
so if you'd 'a' been in this house for a while back. Why, they've
stole everything they could lay their hands on--and we a-watching all
the time, mind you. They stole that shirt right off o' the line! and
as for that sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther' ain't no
telling how many times they _didn't_ steal that; and flour, and
candles, and candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and
most a thousand things that I disremember now, and my new calico
dress; and me and Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day
_and_ night, as I was a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch
hide nor hair nor sight nor sound of them; and here at the last
minute, lo and behold you, they slides right in under our noses and
fools us, and not only fools _us_ but the Injun Territory robbers too,
and actuly gets _away_ with that nigger safe and sound, and that with
sixteen men and twenty-two dogs right on their very heels at that very
time! I tell you, it just bangs anything I ever _heard_ of. Why,
_sperits_ couldn't 'a' done better and been no smarter. And I reckon
they must 'a' _been_ sperits--because, because, _you_ know our dogs,
and ther' ain't no better; well, them dogs never even got on the
_track_ of 'm once! You explain _that_ to me if you can!--_any_ of
you!"

"Well, it does beat--"

"Laws alive, I never--"

"So help me, I wouldn't 'a' be--"

"_House_-thieves as well as--"

"Goodnessgracioussakes, I'd 'a' ben afeard to _live_ in sich a--"

"Fraid to _live!_--why, I was that scared I dasn't hardly go to bed,
or get up, or lay down, or _set_ down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they'd
steal the very--why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a
fluster I was in by the time midnight come last night. I hope to
gracious if I warn't afraid they'd steal some o' the family! I was
just to that pass I didn't have no reasoning faculties no more. It
looks foolish enough _now_, in the daytime; but I says to myself,
there's my two poor boys asleep, 'way upstairs in that lonesome room,
and I declare to goodness I was that uneasy 't I crep' up there and
locked 'em in! I _did_. And anybody would. Because, you know, when you
get scared that way, and it keeps running on, and getting worse and
worse all the time, and your wits gets to addling, and you get to
doing all sorts o' wild things, and by and by you think to yourself,
spos'n I was a boy, and was away up there, and the door ain't locked,
and you--" She stopped, looking kind of wondering, and then she turned
her head around slow, and when her eye lit on me--I got up and took a
walk.

Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that
room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little.
So I done it. But I dasn't go fur, or she'd 'a' sent for me. And when
it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and
told her the noise and shooting waked up me and "Sid," and the door
was locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the
lightning-rod, and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn't never
want to try _that_ no more. And then I went on and told her all what I
told Uncle Silas before; and then she said she'd forgive us, and maybe
it was all right enough anyway, and about what a body might expect of
boys, for all boys was a pretty harum-scarum lot as fur as she could
see; and so, as long as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she
better put in her time being grateful we was alive and well and she
had us still, stead of fretting over what was past and done. So then
she kissed me, and patted me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a
brown-study; and pretty soon jumps up, and says:

"Why, lawsamercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet! What _has_
become of that boy?"

I see my chance; so I skips up and says:

"I'll run right up to town and get him," I says.

"No you won't," she says. "You'll stay right wher' you are; _one's_
enough to be lost at a time. If he ain't here to supper, your uncle
'll go."

Well, he warn't there to supper; so right after supper uncle went.

He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn't run across Tom's
track. Aunt Sally was a good _deal_ uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said
there warn't no occasion to be--boys will be boys, he said, and you'll
see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had to
be satisfied. But she said she'd set up for him awhile anyway, and
keep a light burning so he could see it.

And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her
candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and
like I couldn't look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and
talked with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and
didn't seem to want to ever stop talking about him; and kept asking me
every now and then if I reckoned he could 'a' got lost, or hurt, or
maybe drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres
suffering or dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears
would drip down silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right,
and would be home in the morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand,
or maybe kiss me, and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it,
because it done her good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she
was going away she looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and
says:

"The door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and
the rod; but you'll be good, _won't_ you? And you won't go? For _my_
sake."

Laws knows I _wanted_ to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all
intending to go; but after that I wouldn't 'a' went, not for kingdoms.

But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very
restless. And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped
around front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window
with her eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I
could do something for her, but I couldn't, only to swear that I
wouldn't never do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I
waked up at dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle
was most out, and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she
was asleep.

The old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no
track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not
saying nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold,
and not eating anything. And by and by the old man says:

"Did I give you the letter?"

"What letter?"

"The one I got yesterday out of the post-office."

"No, you didn't give me no letter."

"Well, I must 'a' forgot it."

So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had
laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says:

"Why, it's from St. Petersburg--it's from Sis."

I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn't stir. But
before she could break it open she dropped it and run--for she see
something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old
doctor; and Jim, in _her_ calico dress, with his hands tied behind
him; and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that
come handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says:

"Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!"

And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other,
which showed he warn't in his right mind; then she flung up her hands,
and says:

"He's alive, thank God! And that's enough!" and she snatched a kiss of
him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering
orders right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as
her tongue could go, every jump of the way.

I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the
old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men
was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to
all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run
away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a
whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the others
said, don't do it, it wouldn't answer at all; he ain't our nigger, and
his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled
them down a little, because the people that's always the most anxious
for to hang a nigger that hain't done just right is always the very
ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've got their
satisfaction out of him.

They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side
the head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let
on to know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own
clothes on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this
time, but to a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his
hands, too, and both legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but
bread and water to eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold
at auction because he didn't come in a certain length of time, and
filled up our hole, and said a couple of farmers with guns must stand
watch around about the cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the
door in the daytime; and about this time they was through with the job
and was tapering off with a kind of generl good-by cussing, and then
the old doctor comes and takes a look, and says:

"Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't
a bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut
the bullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for me
to leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little
worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let
me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill
me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do
anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have _help_ somehow; and
the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says
he'll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I
judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I _was!_ and there I had
to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night.
It was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills,
and of course I'd of liked to run up to town and see them, but I
dasn't, because the nigger might get away, and then I'd be to blame;
and yet never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had
to stick plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger
that was a better nuss or faithfuler, and yet he was risking his
freedom to do it, and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough
he'd been worked main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell
you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars--and
kind treatment, too. I had everything I needed, and the boy was doing
as well there as he would 'a' done at home--better, maybe, because it
was so quiet; but there I _was_, with both of 'm on my hands, and
there I had to stick till about dawn this morning; then some men in a
skiff come by, and as good luck would have it the nigger was setting
by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I
motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and
tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no
trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we
muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice
and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word
from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think
about him."

Somebody says:

"Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say."

Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful
to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was
according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good
heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they
all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have
some notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised,
right out and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more.

Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he
could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten
heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but
they didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix
in, but I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or
other as soon as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just
ahead of me--explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about
Sid being shot when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted
night paddling around hunting the runaway nigger.

But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day
and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I
dodged him.

Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt
Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I
found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that
would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and
pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and
laid for him to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding
in, and there I was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still,
and set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be
joyful now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he'd been
sleeping like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuler
all the time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind.

So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his
eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says:

"Hello!--why, I'm at _home!_ How's that? Where's the raft?"

"It's all right," I says.

"And _Jim?_"

"The same," I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash. But he never
noticed, but says:

"Good! Splendid! _Now_ we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?"

I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says:

"About what, Sid?"

"Why, about the way the whole thing was done."

"What whole thing?"

"Why, _the_ whole thing. There ain't but one; how we set the runaway
nigger free--me and Tom."

"Good land! Set the run--What _is_ the child talking about! Dear,
dear, out of his head again!"

"_No_, I ain't out of my HEAD; I know all what I'm talking about. We
_did_ set him free--me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we _done_
it. And we done it elegant, too." He'd got a start, and she never
checked him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip
along, and I see it warn't no use for _me_ to put in. "Why, Aunty, it
cost us a power of work--weeks of it--hours and hours, every night,
whilst you was all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet,
and the shirt, and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and
case-knives, and the warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and
just no end of things, and you can't think what work it was to make
the saws, and pens, and inscriptions, and one thing or another, and
you can't think half the fun it was. And we had to make up the
pictures of coffins and things, and nonnamous letters from the
robbers, and get up and down the lightning-rod, and dig the hole into
the cabin, and make the rope ladder and send it in cooked up in a pie,
and send in spoons and things to work with in your apron pocket--"

"Mercy sakes!"

"--and load up the cabin with rats and snake's and so on, for company
for Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat
that you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come
before we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us
and let drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path
and let them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in
us, but went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for
the raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all
by ourselves, and _wasn't_ it bully. Aunty!"

"Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was
_you_, you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble,
and turned everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to
death. I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out
o' you this very minute. To think, here I've been, night after night,
a--_you_ just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the
Old Harry out o' both o' ye!"

But Tom, he _was_ so proud and joyful, he just _couldn't_ hold in, and
his tongue just _went_ it--she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all
along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and
she says:

"_Well_, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it _now_, for mind I
tell you if I catch you meddling with him again--"

"Meddling with _who_ Tom says, dropping his smile and looking
surprised.

"With _who?_ Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon?"

Tom looks at me very grave, and says:

"Tom, didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away?"

"_Him?_" says Aunt Sally; "the runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't.
They've got him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, on
bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or
sold!"

Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening
and shutting like gills, and sings out to me:

"They hain't no _right_ to shut him up! _Shove!_--and don't you lose a
minute. Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any cretur
that walks this earth!"

"What _does_ the child mean?"

"I mean every word I _say_, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go,
_I'll_ go. I've knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old
Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was
going to sell him down the river, and _said_ so; and she set him free
in her will."

"Then what on earth did _you_ want to set him free for, seeing he was
already free?"

"Well, that _is_ a question, I must say; and _just_ like women! Why, I
wanted the _adventure_ of it; and I'd 'a' waded neck-deep in blood
to--goodness alive, _Aunt Polly!"_

If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as
sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never!

Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and
cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed,
for it was getting pretty sultry for _us_, seemed to me. And I peeped
out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and
stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles--kind of
grinding him into the earth, you know. And then she says:

"Yes, you _better_ turn y'r head away--I would if I was you, Tom."

"Oh, deary me!" says Aunt Sally; "_is_ he changed so? Why, that ain't
_Tom_, it's Sid; Tom's--Tom's--why, where is Tom? He was here a minute
ago."

"You mean where's Huck _Finn_--that's what you mean! I reckon I hain't
raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I
_see_ him. That _would_ be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that
bed, Huck Finn."

So I done it. But not feeling brash.

Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever
see--except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they
told it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he
didn't know nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a
prayer-meeting sermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation,
because the oldest man in the world couldn't 'a' understood it. So
Tom's Aunt Polly, she told all about who I was, and what; and I had to
up and tell how I was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took
me for Tom Sawyer--she chipped in and says, "Oh, go on and call me
Aunt Sally, I'm used to it now, and 'taint no need to change"--that
when Aunt Sally took me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand it--there warn't
no other way, and I knowed he wouldn't mind, because it would be nuts
for him, being a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of it, and be
perfectly satisfied. And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid,
and made things as soft as he could for me.

And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson
setting Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone
and took all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I
couldn't ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how
he _could_ help a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up.

Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom
and _Sid_ had come all right and safe, she says to herself:

"Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that
way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all
the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that
creetur's up to _this_ time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any
answer out of you about it."

"Why, I never heard nothing from you," says Aunt Sally.

"Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean
by Sid being here."

"Well, I never got 'em. Sis."

Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says:

"You, Tom!"

"Well--_what?_" he says, kind of pettish.

"Don't you what _me_, you impudent thing--hand out them letters."

"What letters?"

"_Them_ letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll--"

"They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they
was when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I
hain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought
if you warn't in no hurry, I'd--"

"Well, you _do_ need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I
wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he--"

"No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but _it's_ all right,
I've got that one."

I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe
it was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing.

Huck quickly locates a doctor and tells him that his brother "had a dream . . . and it shot him." The doctor heads for the raft but will not let Huck come along because the canoe is too small. Exhausted, Huck falls asleep until the next morning. When he wakes up, he runs into Uncle Silas, and the two of them go back to the Phelps farm, which is full of local men discussing the strange cabin and its contents. The farmers decide that Jim must have been helped by several slaves and the writing is some sort of "secret African" language. The next day, Tom and Jim arrive at the Phelps' with the doctor and several of the farmers. Tom is on a mattress and Jim has his hands tied. The men argue whether or not to hang Jim, and the doctor explains how Jim helped with Tom instead of running away. The next morning Tom wakes up and begins to tell Aunt Sally how he and "Tom" orchestrated the entire escape. Tom relishes the retelling until he hears that Jim is still in captivity. Tom rises up in bed and demands that they free Jim because he has known all along that Miss Watson had died and set Jim free in her will. At that moment, Aunt Polly arrives, and Tom and Huck are forced to reveal their true identities.

With Tom unable to direct the plans, Huck again takes control of the story and makes decisions based on his common sense and logic. Instead of listening to Tom's intricate plan to fetch a doctor, Huck trusts his own ability to tell lies and control the situation. Although the doctor is somewhat suspicious of Huck's story, when Huck returns to the farm, he finds that the entire community has been drawn into Tom's fanciful escape. The ignorance and gullibility of the farmers is easily seen as they try to reconstruct and understand the escape. Jim's refusal to leave Tom in Chapter 40 becomes more significant in Chapter 42 when he allows himself to be recaptured. As with Huck's earlier decision to sacrifice his soul to free Jim, Jim sacrifices his freedom and, quite possibly, his life by staying with Tom. Because Jim is thought to be a runaway slave, the local men "was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim as an example." Jim is, no doubt, fully aware that if he is recaptured he might be lynched, and this realization gives more credence to his role as a heroic figure at the end of the novel. The doctor who saves Tom also lauds Jim's character, and this praise further establishes his position. As mentioned earlier, one of the most controversial elements of the novel is the fact that Jim is already free during the escape. When Tom realizes that Jim has been recaptured, he sits up in bed and declares that "They hain't no right to shut him up! Shove! -- and don't you lose a minute. Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any cretur that walks this earth!" The realization stuns both the characters of the novel and the readers, as it becomes clear that the entire escape was unnecessary. The turn of events serves two purposes. On the surface, the realization finalizes the separate attitudes and beliefs of Tom and Huck. Tom's Romanticism is now viewed as harmful instead of playful, and his connection with society illustrates its overarching lack of compassion toward the plight of slaves in nineteenth-century America. Beneath the surface, however, is the subtle message that no one, regardless of race or social standing or location, is free from civilization and its misconceptions. Tom's statement, then, is one of ">Twain's harshest and most ironic comments on the American condition. Glossary Nebokoodneezer Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia who conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and deported many Jews into Babylonia .


I had shut the door to. Then I turned around, and there he was. I used
to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I
was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is,
after the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched,
he being so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of
him worth bothring about.

He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and
greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through like
he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long,
mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face
showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to
make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toad
white, a fish-belly white. As for his clothes--just rags, that was
all. He had one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot
was busted, and two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now
and then. His hat was laying on the floor--an old black slouch with
the top caved in, like a lid.

I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair
tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was
up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By
and by he says:

"Starchy clothes--very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug,
_don't_ you?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says.

"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on
considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg
before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say--can read
and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you,
because he can't? _I'll_ take it out of you. Who told you you might
meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?"

"The widow. She told me."

"The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovel
about a thing that ain't none of her business?"

"Nobody never told her."

"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here--you drop that
school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs
over his own father and let on to be better'n what _he_ is. You lemme
catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother
couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None
of the family couldn't before _they_ died. I can't; and here you're
a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you
hear? Say, lemme hear you read."

I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the
wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack
with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says:

"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky
here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for
you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you
good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a
son."

He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy,
and says:

"What's this?"

"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good."

He tore it up, and says:

"I'll give you something better--I'll give you a cowhide."

He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says:

"_Ain't_ you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and
a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor--and your own
father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a
son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done
with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they say you're rich.
Hey?--how's that?"

"They lie--that's how."

"Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can
stand now--so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I
hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away
down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money
to-morrow--I want it."

"I hain't got no money."

"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it."

"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell
you the same."

"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know
the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it."

"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--"

"It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell it
out."

He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was
going down-town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all
day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and
cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and
when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again,
and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for
me and lick me if I didn't drop that.

Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged
him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and
then he swore he'd make the law force him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away
from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge
that had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts
mustn't interfere and separate families if they could help it; said
he'd druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher
and the widow had to quit on the business.

That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide
me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I
borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got
drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying
on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most
midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before
court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said _he_ was
satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make it warm for
_him._

When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of
him. So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and
nice, and had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family,
and was just old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked
to him about temperance and such things till the old man cried, and
said he'd been a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was
a-going to turn over a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be
ashamed of, and he hoped the judge would help him and not look down on
him. The judge said he could hug him for them words; so he cried, and
his wife she cried again; pap said he'd been a man that had always
been misunderstood before, and the judge said he believed it. The old
man said that what a man wanted that was down was sympathy, and the
judge said it was so; so they cried again. And when it was bedtime the
old man rose up and held out his hand, and says:

"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it.
There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more;
it's the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die
before he'll go back. You mark them words--don't forget I said them.
It's a clean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard."

So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The
judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge--made
his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or
something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful
room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got
powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a
stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb
back again and had a good old time; and toward daylight he crawled out
again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left
arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him
after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had
to take soundings before they could navigate it.

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could
reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other
way.

Pap is a frightening sight. The nearly fifty-year-old man's skin is a ghastly, disgusting white. Noticing Huck's "starchy" clothes, Pap wonders out loud if Huck thinks himself better than his father and promises to take Huck "down a peg. Pap promises to teach Widow Douglas not to "meddle" and is outraged that Huck has become the first person in his family to learn to read. Pap asks if Huck is really as rich as he has heard and calls his son a liar when Huck replies that he has no more money. Pap then takes the dollar that Huck got from Judge Thatcher and leaves to buy whiskey. The next day, Pap shows up drunk and demands Huck's money from Judge Thatcher. The Judge and Widow Douglas try to get custody of Huck but give up after the new judge in town refuses to separate a father and son. Pap eventually lands in jail after a drunken spree. The new judge takes Pap into his home and tries to reform him, but the judge and his wife prove to be very weepy and moralizing. Pap tearfully repents his ways but soon gets drunk again, and the new judge decides that the only way to reform Pap is with a shotgun

In these chapters, Twain makes a number of comments on the society of his time and its attempts at reform. We see a number of well-meaning individuals who engage in foolish, even cruel behavior. The new judge in town refuses to give custody of Huck to Judge Thatcher and the Widow, despite Pap's history of neglect and abuse. This poorly informed decision not only makes us question the wisdom and morality of these public figures but also resonates with the plight of slaves in Southern society at the time. The new judge in town returns Huck to Pap because he privileges Pap's "rights" over Huck's welfare--just as slaves, because they were considered property, were regularly returned to their legal owners, no matter how badly these owners abused them. Twain also takes the opportunity to mock the bleeding-heart do-gooders of the temperance, or anti-alcohol, movement: the judge is clearly naive, misguided, and blind to the larger evils around him, and the weeping and moralizing that goes on in his home is grating, to say the least. Throughout these chapters, Huck is at the center of countless failures and breakdowns in the society around him, yet he maintains his characteristic resilience. Indeed, Huck's family, the legal system, and the community all fail to protect him or to provide a set of beliefs and values that are consistent and satisfying to him. Huck's wrongful imprisonment elicits sympathy and concern on our part, even though this imprisonment does not seem to distress Huck in the least. Sadly, Huck is so used to social abuses by this point in his life that he has no reason to prefer one set of abuses over the other. Likewise, although Pap is a hideous, hateful man in nearly every respect, Huck does not immediately abandon him when given the chance. Pap is, after all, Huck's father, and Huck is still a fairly young boy. Ultimately, Pap's kidnapping of Huck provides an opportunity for Huck to break from this society that has done him harm. Pap, the embodiment of pure evil, is one of Twain's most memorable characters. Because we have no background information to explain his present state, his role is primarily symbolic. The deathly pallor of his skin, which is nauseating to Huck, makes Pap emblematic of whiteness. Unfortunately, Pap represents the worst of white society: he is illiterate, ignorant, violent, and profoundly racist. The mixed-race man who visits the town contrasts Pap in every way: he is a clean-cut, knowledgeable, and seemingly politically conscious professor. In establishing the contrast between Pap and the mixed-race man, Twain overturns traditional symbolism of his time and implies that whiteness, not blackness, is associated with evil. Jim's vision of Pap's two angels and Huck's two future wives extends this sense of confusion over good and bad, human and inhuman, right and wrong in Huck's world. At this point, Jim is unclear as to which will win, and even less clear about which should win.


Well, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he
went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money,
and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a
couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same,
and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to
school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law
trial was a slow business--appeared like they warn't ever going to get
started on it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars
off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time
he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain
around town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just
suited--this kind of thing was right in his line.

He got to hanging around the widow's too much, and so she told him at
last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble
for him. Well, _wasn't_ he mad? He said he would show who was Huck
Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and
catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and
crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't
no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick
you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was.

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off.
We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the
key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon,
and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little
while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the
ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and
got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out
where I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of
me; but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that
till I was used to being where I was, and liked it--all but the
cowhide part.

It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking
and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and
my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever
got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat
on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be
forever bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you
all the time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing,
because the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again because
pap hadn't no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods
there, take it all around.

But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand
it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and
locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was
dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't ever
going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix
up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many
a time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it big
enough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it was
too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty
careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was
away; I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times;
well, I was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way
to put in the time. But this time I found something at last; I found
an old rusty wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a
rafter and the clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to
work. There was an old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the
far end of the cabin behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing
through the chinks and putting the candle out. I got under the table
and raised the blanket, and went to work to saw a section of the big
bottom log out--big enough to let me through. Well, it was a good long
job, but I was getting toward the end of it when I heard pap's gun in
the woods. I got rid of the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket
and hid my saw, and pretty soon pap come in.

Pap warn't in a good humor--so he was his natural self. He said he was
down-town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned
he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on
the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and
Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd
be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for
my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up
considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more
and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old
man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think
of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped
any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all
round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know
the names of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them,
and went right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch
out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a
place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till
they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy
again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till
he got that chance.

The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got.
There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon,
ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two
newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went
back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all
over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and
take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one
place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night-times,
and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old
man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw
out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he
would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till
the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.

I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark.
While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort
of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in
town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at.
A body would 'a' thought he was Adam--he was just all mud. Whenever
his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment. This
time he says:

"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like.
Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him--a
man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety
and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son
raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for
_him_ and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call
_that_ govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge
Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what
the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and
up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets
him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that
govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes
I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes,
and I _told_ 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em
heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave
the blamed country and never come a-near it ag'in. Them's the very
words. I says, look at my hat--if you call it a hat--but the lid
raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and
then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved
up through a jint o' stove-pipe. Look at it, says I--such a hat for me
to wear--one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my
rights.

"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here.
There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as
a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the
shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine
clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a
silver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the state.
And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and
could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that
ain't the wust. They said he could _vote_ when he was at home. Well,
that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was
'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't
too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in
this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says
I'll never vote ag'in. Them's the very words I said; they all heard
me; and the country may rot for all me--I'll never vote ag'in as long
as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger--why, he wouldn't
'a' give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to
the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold?--that's
what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said
he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the state six months, and he
hadn't been there that long yet. There, now--that's a specimen. They
call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in
the state six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment,
and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got
to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a-hold of a
prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and--"

Pap was a-going on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was
taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork
and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest
kind of language--mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he
give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around
the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other,
holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out
with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling
kick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had
a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he
raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went
in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he
done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his
own self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days,
and he said it laid over him, too; but I reckon that was sort of
piling it on, maybe.

After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for
two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I
judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would
steal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank,
and tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my
way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned
and thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got
so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I
knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.

I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an
awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping
around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was
crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and
say one had bit him on the cheek--but I couldn't see no snakes. He
started and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off!
take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so
wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down
panting; then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things
every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands,
and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out
by and by, and laid still awhile, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and
didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in
the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the
corner. By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to
one side. He says, very low:

"Tramp--tramp--tramp; that's the dead; tramp--tramp--tramp; they're
coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch
me--don't! hands off--they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil
alone!"

Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let
him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in
under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying.
I could hear him through the blanket.

By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he
see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a
clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill
me, and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged, and told him I
was only Huck; but he laughed _such_ a screechy laugh, and roared and
cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and dodged
under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my
shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket
quick as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired
out, and dropped down with his back against the door, and said he
would rest a minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and
said he would sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who.

So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old split-bottom
chair and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got
down the gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded,
and then I laid it across the turnip-barrel, pointing towards pap, and
set down behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the
time did drag along.

Pap sues Judge Thatcher for Huck's fortune and continues to threaten Huck about attending school. Huck continues to attend, partly to spite his father. Pap goes on one drunken binge after another. One day, he kidnaps Huck, takes him deep into the woods to a secluded cabin on the Illinois shore, and locks Huck inside all day while he rambles outside. Eventually, Huck finds an old saw, makes a hole in the wall, and resolves to escape from both Pap and the Widow Douglas, but Pap returns as Huck is about to break free. Pap complains that Judge Thatcher has delayed the trial to prevent him from getting Huck's wealth. He has heard that his chances of getting the money are good but that he will probably lose the fight for custody of Huck. Pap continues to rant about a mixed-race man in town; Pap is disgusted that the man is allowed to vote in his home state of Ohio, and that legally he cannot be sold into slavery until he has been in Missouri six months. Later, Pap wakes from a drunken sleep and chases after Huck with a knife, calling him the "Angel of Death" but stopping when he passes out. Huck holds a rifle pointed at his sleeping father and waits


I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the
island that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got
to it, because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a
mile wide.

This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot
high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep
and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and
by and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on
the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three rooms
bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool
in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I
said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time.

Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the
traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the
island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he
said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want
the things to get wet?

So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern,
and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by
to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off
of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner.

The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on
one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat
and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked
dinner.

We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in
there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern.
Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the
birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained
like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of
these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all
blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so
thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby;
and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and
turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of
a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms
as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest
and blackest--_fst!_ it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a
little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the
storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as
sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an
awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky
towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels
down-stairs--where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you
know.

"Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but
here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."

"Well, you wouldn't 'a' ben here 'f it hadn't 'a' ben for Jim. You'd
'a' ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittin' mos'
drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to
rain, en so do de birds, chile."

The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at
last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on
the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side
it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the
same old distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore
was just a wall of high bluffs.

Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe. It was mighty
cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside.
We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines
hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on
every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such
things; and when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got
so tame, on account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up
and put your hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and
turtles--they would slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was
in was full of them. We could 'a' had pets enough if we'd wanted them.

One night we catched a little section of a lumber-raft--nice pine
planks. It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot
long, and the top stood above water six or seven inches--a solid,
level floor. We could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes,
but we let them go; we didn't show ourselves in daylight.

Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before
daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a
two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got
aboard--clumb in at an up-stairs window. But it was too dark to see
yet, so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.

The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then
we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and
two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and
there was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something laying
on the floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says:

"Hello, you!"

But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says:

"De man ain't asleep--he's dead. You hold still--I'll go en see."

He went, and bent down and looked, and says:

"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back.
I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan'
look at his face--it's too gashly."

I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but
he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old
greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky-bottles,
and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls
was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal.
There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some
women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's
clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe--it might come good.
There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that,
too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag
stopper for a baby to suck. We would 'a' took the bottle, but it was
broke. There was a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the
hinges broke. They stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them
that was any account. The way things was scattered about we reckoned
the people left in a hurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most
of their stuff.

We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and
a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of
tallow candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and
a ratty old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins
and beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a
hatchet and some nails, and a fish-line as thick as my little finger
with some monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather
dog-collar, and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't
have no label on them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable
good currycomb, and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden
leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good
enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim,
and we couldn't find the other one, though we hunted all around.

And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to
shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was
pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up
with the quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger
a good ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted
down most a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the
bank, and hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. We got home all
safe.

In order to make a hiding place should visitors arrive on the island, Jim and Huck take the canoe and provisions into a large cave in the middle of the island. Jim predicts that it will rain, and soon a storm blows in. The two safely wait it out inside the cave. The river floods, and a washed-out house floats down the river past the island. Inside, Jim and Huck find the body of a man who has been shot in the back. Jim prevents Huck from looking at the "ghastly" face. Jim and Huck make off with some odds and ends from the houseboat. Huck has Jim hide in the bottom of the canoe so that he won't be seen, and they make it back to the island safely

Despite Twain's disdain for the romantic, sentimentalized novels, these chapters are a tightly constructed mix of the romantic and the practical. Huck and Jim's meeting on the island begins the main story arc of the novel. Huck and Jim, both alienated from society in fundamental ways, find themselves sharing a pastoral, dreamlike setting: a safe, peaceful island where food is abundant. From this point in the novel forward, their fates are linked. Jim has had no more say in his own fate as an adult than Huck has had as a child. Both in peril, Huck and Jim have had to break with society. Freed from the hypocrisy and injustice of society, they find themselves in what seems a paradise, smoking a pipe, watching the river, and feasting on catfish and wild berries. Two episodes in these chapters, however, remind Huck and Jim of the looming threat from outside and give us the sense that this fantasy on the island is unlikely to last. The first involves the house that floats down the river past the island. The man inside the house has clearly been murdered, and the house bears other marks of human vices: playing cards, whiskey bottles, and obscene graffiti. Although Huck and Jim gather some useful goods from the house, it reminds them that Jackson's Island is not completely isolated from the outside world. The second incident involves Jim's rattlesnake bite, a direct result of a stupid prank Huck tries to play on Jim. As in the biblical Garden of Eden, snakes lurk on this island paradise and hurt people who behave unwisely. Once again, Huck and Jim are reminded that no location is safe for them. These two incidents also flesh out some important aspects of the relationship between Huck and Jim. In the episode with the rattlesnake, Huck acts like a child, and Jim gets hurt. In both incidents, Jim uses his knowledge to benefit both of them but also seeks to protect Huck: he refuses to let Huck see the body in the floating house, for it is the body of Huck's father. Jim is an intelligent and caring adult who has escaped out of love for his family--and he displays this same caring aspect toward Huck here. While Huck's motives are equally sound, he is still a child and frequently behaves like one. In a sense, Jim and Huck together make up a sort of alternative family in an alternative place, apart from the society that has only harmed them up to this point.


After breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how
he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch
bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a
man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than
one that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable,
so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from studying over it and
wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.

We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver
sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he
reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd
'a' knowed the money was there they wouldn't 'a' left it. I said I
reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.
I says:

"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in
the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before
yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a
snake-skin with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in
all this truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some
bad luck like this every day, Jim."

"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart. It's
a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."

It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after
dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of
the ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some,
and found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on
the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some
fun when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the
snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a
light the snake's mate was there, and bit him.

He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the
varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a
second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to
pour it down.

He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all
comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you
leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it.
Jim told me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then
skin the body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and
said it would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie
them around his wrist, too. He said that that would help. Then I slid
out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I
warn't going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could
help it.

Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his
head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself
he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big,
and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I
judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than
pap's whisky.

Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all
gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take
a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had
come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he
said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we
hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon
over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a
snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself,
though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your
left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body
can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in
less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and
spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may
say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin,
and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But
anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool.

Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks
again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big
hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as
big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two
hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would 'a' flung
us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear
around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a
round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the
hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a
long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a
fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he
hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would 'a' been worth a good deal
over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound
in the market-house there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as
white as snow and makes a good fry.

Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get
a stirring-up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river
and find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I
must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said,
couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl?
That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico
gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it.
Jim hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on
the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look
in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim
said nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practised
around all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do
pretty well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he
said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket. I
took notice, and done better.

I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark.

I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing,
and the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town.
I tied up and started along the bank. There was a light burning in a
little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I
wondered who had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at
the window. There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting
by a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know her face; she was
a stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't
know. Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting
afraid I had come; people might know my voice and find me out. But if
this woman had been in such a little town two days she could tell me
all I wanted to know; so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I
wouldn't forget I was a girl.

Huck wonders about the dead man, but Jim warns that it's bad luck to think about such things. Huck has already incurred bad luck, according to Jim, by finding and handling a snake's shed skin. Sure enough, bad luck comes: as a joke, Huck puts a dead rattlesnake near Jim's sleeping place, and its mate comes and bites Jim. Jim's leg swells but gets better after several days. A while later, Huck decides to go ashore to get information. Jim agrees, but has Huck disguise himself as a girl, using one of the dresses they took from the houseboat. Huck practices his girl impersonation and then sets out for the Illinois shore. In a formerly abandoned shack, he finds a woman who looks about forty years old and appears to be a newcomer to the town. Huck is relieved because, as a newcomer, the woman will not be able to recognize him. Still, he resolves to remember that he is pretending to be a girl


It must 'a' been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island
at last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to
come along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the
Illinois shore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever
thought to put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to
eat. We was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things.
It warn't good judgment to put _everything_ on the raft.

If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp-fire I
built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed
away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn't
no fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could.

When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead in
a big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches
with the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like
there had been a cave-in in the bank there. A towhead is a sand-bar
that has cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth.

We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the
Illinois side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that
place, so we warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there
all day, and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri
shore, and up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I
told Jim all about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim
said she was a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she
wouldn't set down and watch a camp-fire--no, sir, she'd fetch a dog.
Well, then, I said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog?
Jim said he bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready to
start, and he believed they must 'a' gone up-town to get a dog and so
they lost all that time, or else we wouldn't be here on a towhead
sixteen or seventeen mile below the village--no, indeedy, we would be
in that same old town again. So I said I didn't care what was the
reason they didn't get us as long as they didn't.

When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the
cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in
sight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a
snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the
things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or
more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the
traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the
wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a
frame around it for to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire
on in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being
seen. We made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the others
might get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked
stick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the
lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep from
getting run over; but we wouldn't have to light it for up-stream boats
unless we see we was in what they call a "crossing"; for the river was
pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; so
up-bound boats didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy water.

This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current
that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked,
and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of
solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs
looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud,
and it warn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low
chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing
ever happened to us at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next.

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides,
nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The
fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit
up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty
thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that
wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. There
warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.

Every night now I used to slip ashore toward ten o'clock at some
little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon
or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't
roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a
chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself
you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever
forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but
that is what he used to say, anyway.

Mornings before daylight I slipped into corn-fields and borrowed a
watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things
of that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if
you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it
warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would
do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was
partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three
things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then he
reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it
over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up
our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the
mushmelons, or what. But toward daylight we got it all settled
satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. We
warn't feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now.
I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain't ever
good, and the p'simmons wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet.

We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morning
or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we
lived pretty high.

The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight,
with a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a
solid sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of
itself. When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight
river ahead, and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By and by says I,
"Hel-_lo_, Jim, looky yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed
herself on a rock. We was drifting straight down for her. The
lightning showed her very distinct. She was leaning over, with part of
her upper deck above water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy
clean and clear, and a chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat
hanging on the back of it, when the flashes come.

Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so
mysterious-like, I felt just the way any other boy would 'a' felt when
I seen that wreck laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle
of the river. I wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little,
and see what there was there. So I says:

"Le's land on her, Jim."

But Jim was dead against it at first. He says:

"I doan' want to go fool'n' 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame' well,
en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like as not
dey's a watchman on dat wrack."

"Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch but
the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going to
resk his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when
it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?" Jim
couldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And besides," I says,
"we might borrow something worth having out of the captain's
stateroom. Seegars, I bet you--and cost five cents apiece, solid cash.
Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and
_they_ don't care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they
want it. Stick a candle in your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till we
give her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this
thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure--that's
what he'd call it; and he'd land on that wreck if it was his last act.
And wouldn't he throw style into it?--wouldn't he spread himself, nor
nothing? Why, you'd think it was Christopher C'lumbus discovering
Kingdom Come. I wish Tom Sawyer _was_ here."

Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any
more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning
showed us the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard
derrick, and made fast there.

The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it to
labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with
our feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was
so dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the
forward end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step
fetched us in front of the captain's door, which was open, and by
Jimminy, away down through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in
the same second we seem to hear low voices in yonder!

Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to
come along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft;
but just then I heard a voice wail out and say:

"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!"

Another voice said, pretty loud:

"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always want
more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because
you've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've said it
jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest hound in
this country."

By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with
curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, and
so I won't either; I'm a-going to see what's going on here. So I
dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft in
the dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the
cross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the
floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one
of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol.
This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and
saying:

"I'd _like_ to! And I orter, too--a mean skunk!"

The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "Oh, please don't,
Bill; I hain't ever goin' to tell."

And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and
say:

"'Deed you _ain't!_ You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet
you." And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the
best of him and tied him he'd 'a' killed us both. And what _for_? Jist
for noth'n'. Jist because we stood on our _rights_--that's what for.
But I lay you ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner.
Put _up_ that pistol, Bill."

Bill says:

"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him--and didn't he
kill old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?"

"But I don't _want_ him killed, and I've got my reasons for it."

"Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit you
long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering.

Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a
nail and started toward where I was, there in the dark, and motioned
Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the
boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep from
getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper
side. The man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to
my stateroom, he says:

"Here--come in here."

And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in
the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there,
with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see
them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd been
having. I was glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much
difference anyway, because most of the time they couldn't 'a' treed me
because I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body
_couldn't_ breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest.
Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says:

"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares
to him _now_ it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way
we've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn state's evidence;
now you hear _me._ I'm for putting him out of his troubles."

"So'm I," says Packard, very quiet.

"Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that's
all right. Le's go and do it."

"Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me.
Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the things _got_ to be
done. But what _I_ say is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n'
around after a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way
that's jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no
resks. Ain't that so?"

"You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time?"

"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whatever
pickin's we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and
hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be
more'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the
river. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it
but his own self. I reckon that's a considerable sight better 'n
killin' of him. I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can
git aroun' it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I
right?"

"Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she _don't_ break up and wash off?"

"Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?"

"All right, then; come along."

So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled
forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of
a moan, and I says:

"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's
a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and
set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from
the wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find
their boat we can put _all_ of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll
get 'em. Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the
stabboard. You start at the raft, and--"

"Oh, my lordy, lordy! _Raf'?_ Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke
loose en gone!--en here we is!"

Huck and Jim build a wigwam on the raft and spend a number of days drifting downriver, traveling by night and hiding by day to avoid being seen. On their fifth night out, they pass the great lights of St. Louis. The two of them "live pretty high," buying, stealing, or hunting food as they need it. They feel somewhat remorseful about the stealing, however, so they decide to give up a few items as a sort of moral sacrifice. One stormy night, they come upon a wrecked steamboat. Against Jim's objections, Huck goes onto the wreck to loot it and have an "adventure," the way Tom Sawyer would. On the wreck, Huck overhears two robbers threatening to kill a third so that he won't "tell. One of the two robbers manages to convince the other to let their victim be drowned with the wreck. The robbers leave. Huck finds Jim and says they have to cut the robbers' boat loose to prevent them from escaping. Jim responds by telling Huck that their own raft has broken loose and floated away

Mrs. Loftus is one of the more sincere people Huck encounters throughout the course of the novel, but her attitude toward Jim makes her goodness somewhat problematic. Mrs. Loftus is clearly a clever woman, as we see in the tests she spontaneously designs to unmask Huck. Despite her charity toward Huck, however, Mrs. Loftus and her husband are only too happy to profit from capturing Jim, and her husband plans to bring a gun to hunt Jim like an animal. Mrs. Loftus makes a clear distinction between Huck, who tells her he has run away from a mean farmer, and Jim, who has done essentially the same thing by running away from an owner who is considering selling him. Whereas Mrs. Loftus and the rest of white society differentiate between an abused runaway slave and an abused runaway boy, Huck does not. Huck and Jim's raft becomes a sort of haven of brotherhood and equality, as both find refuge and peace from a society that has treated them poorly. The two even engage in a bit of moral philosophizing about stealing. Though their resolution to give up stealing a few items to render their other stealing less sinful seems childish, it nevertheless represents an attempt to reconcile practical and moral concerns. The pattern of Huck's childishness getting both himself and Jim into trouble continues in these chapters, as Huck follows his boyish, Tom Sawyer-like impulses and nearly has a run-in with the robbers on the wrecked steamboat. There is no good reason why Huck and Jim should tie up to the wrecked ship, particularly at night and in a storm, but Huck is unable to resist. The two are lucky to escape, and the incident proves to be another reminder that even on the river they are not safe from the problems that plagued them at home--violence, cruelty, and powerlessness at the hands of any white adult. Huck's attempts to reconcile the situation show that he is learning, despite his initial immaturity. When Huck acts like Tom Sawyer, trouble follows, but when he acts like himself--when he seeks to interpret and react to experience in a practical manner--things generally turn out fine. The fact that Jim sees the foolishness of many of Huck's endeavors but never restrains Huck reminds us of Jim's extremely tenuous position as an escaped slave. In a number of instances in the novel, Jim protests when Huck formulates a foolish plan, but eventually gives in to the boy. Twain never explicitly explains Jim's reasoning, but the implication is always there that Jim's caution stems from his constant fear of being caught and returned to his former owner. After all, Huck, though a child, is a free, white child who could turn in Jim at any time and collect a large reward for doing so. Although this idea seems never to cross Huck's mind, it lurks beneath the surface of Jim and Huck's interactions and reminds us of the constant fear Jim lives with as an escaped slave.