the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 34-35 | study guide | cliffsnotes

We stopped talking, and got to thinking. By and by Tom says:

"Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I bet
I know where Jim is."

"No! Where?"

"In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we was at
dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?"

"Yes."

"What did you think the vittles was for?"

"For a dog."

"So 'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog."

"Why?"

"Because part of it was watermelon."

"So it was--I noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never thought
about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and
don't see at the same time."

"Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked
it again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about the time we
got up from table--same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows
prisoner; and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little
plantation, and where the people's all so kind and good. Jim's the
prisoner. All right--I'm glad we found it out detective fashion; I
wouldn't give shucks for any other way. Now you work your mind, and
study out a plan to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and
we'll take the one we like the best."

What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer's head I
wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown
in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a
plan, but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where
the right plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says:

"Ready?"

"Yes," I says.

"All right--bring it out."

"My plan is this," I says. "We can easy find out if it's Jim in there.
Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the
island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the
old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river
on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me
and Jim used to do before. Wouldn't that plan work?"

"_Work?_ Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it's
too blame' simple; there ain't nothing _to_ it. What's the good of a
plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk.
Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap
factory."

I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different;
but I knowed mighty well that whenever he got _his_ plan ready it
wouldn't have none of them objections to it.

And it didn't. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was
worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man
as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was
satisfied, and said we would waltz in on it. I needn't tell what it
was here, because I knowed it wouldn't stay the way it was. I knowed
he would be changing it around every which way as we went along, and
heaving in new bullinesses wherever he got a chance. And that is what
he done.

Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in
earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of
slavery. That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy
that was respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose;
and folks at home that had characters; and he was bright and not
leather-headed; and knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind;
and yet here he was, without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling,
than to stoop to this business, and make himself a shame, and his
family a shame, before everybody. I _couldn't_ understand it no way at
all. It was outrageous, and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him
so; and so be his true friend, and let him quit the thing right where
he was and save himself. And I _did_ start to tell him; but he shut me
up, and says:

"Don't you reckon I know what I'm about?  Don't I generly know what
I'm about?"

"Yes."

"Didn't I _say_ I was going to help steal the nigger?"

"Yes."

"Well, then."

That's all he said, and that's all I said. It warn't no use to say any
more; because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But I
couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I just
let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to
have it so, I couldn't help it.

When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went on down
to the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it. We went through the
yard so as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed us, and didn't
make no more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything
comes by in the night. When we got to the cabin we took a look at the
front and the two sides; and on the side I warn't acquainted
with--which was the north side--we found a square window-hole, up
tolerable high, with just one stout board nailed across it. I says:

"Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if
we wrench off the board."

Tom says:

"It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as playing
hooky. I should _hope_ we can find a way that's a little more
complicated than _that_, Huck Finn."

"Well, then," I says, "how'll it do to saw him out, the way I done
before I was murdered that time?"

"That's more _like_," he says. "It's real mysterious, and troublesome,
and good," he says; "but I bet we can find a way that's twice as long.
There ain't no hurry; le's keep on looking around."

Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to that
joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long
as the hut, but narrow--only about six foot wide. The door to it was
at the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the soap-kettle
and searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid
with; so he took it and prized out one of the staples. The chain fell
down, and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck a
match, and see the shed was only built against a cabin and hadn't no
connection with it; and there warn't no floor to the shed, nor nothing
in it but some old rusty played-out hoes and spades and picks and a
crippled plow. The match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the
staple again, and the door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful.
He says:

"Now we're all right. We'll _dig_ him out. It 'll take about a week!"

Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door--you only
have to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don't fasten the doors--but
that warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer; no way would do him but
he must climb up the lightning-rod. But after he got up half-way about
three times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last time
most busted his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up; but
after he was rested he allowed he would give her one more turn for
luck, and this time he made the trip.

In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger
cabins to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed
Jim--if it _was_ Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting
through breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim's nigger was
piling up a tin pan with bread and meat and things; and whilst the
others was leaving, the key come from the house.

This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool was
all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep witches
off. He said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and
making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of
strange words and noises, and he didn't believe he was ever witched so
long before in his life. He got so worked up, and got to running on so
about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd been a-going to do.
So Tom says:

"What's the vittles for?  Going to feed the dogs?"

The nigger kind of smiled around graduly over his face, like when you
heave a brickbat in a mud-puddle, and he says:

"Yes, Mars Sid, _a_ dog. Cur'us dog, too. Does you want to go en look
at 'im?"

"Yes."

I hunched Tom, and whispers:

"You going, right here in the daybreak? _That_ warn't the plan."

"No, it warn't; but it's the plan _now._"

So, drat him, we went along, but I didn't like it much. When we got in
we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was there,
sure enough, and could see us; and he sings out:

"Why, _Huck!_ En good _lan'!_ ain' dat Misto Tom?"

I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it. I didn't know
nothing to do; and if I had I couldn't 'a' done it, because that
nigger busted in and says:

"Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?"

We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and
kind of wondering, and says:

"Does _who_ know us?"

"Why, dis-yer runaway nigger."

"I don't reckon he does; but what put that into your head?"

"What _put_ it dar? Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed
you?"

Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way:

"Well, that's mighty curious. _Who_ sung out? _When_ did he sing out?
_What_ did he sing out?" And turns to me, perfectly ca'm, and says,
"Did _you_ hear anybody sing out?"

Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing; so I
says:

"No; _I_ ain't heard nobody say nothing."

Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before,
and says:

"Did you sing out?"

"No, sah," says Jim; "I hain't said nothing, sah."

"Not a word?"

"No, sah, I hain't said a word."

"Did you ever see us before?"

"No, sah; not as I knows on."

So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and
says, kind of severe:

"What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway? What made you think
somebody sung out?"

"Oh, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do.
Dey's awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so.
Please to don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll
scole me; 'kase he say dey _ain't_ no witches. I jis' wish to goodness
he was heah now--_den_ what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn' fine
no way to git aroun' it _dis_ time. But it's awluz jis' so; people
dat's _sot_, stays sot; dey won't look into noth'n' en fine it out f'r
deyselves, en when _you_ fine it out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan'
b'lieve you."

Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody; and told him to
buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at Jim,
and says:

"I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to
catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give
him up, I'd hang him." And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to
look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim
and says:

"Don't ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going on
nights, it's us; we're going to set you free."

Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then the
nigger come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the nigger
wanted us to; and he said he would, more particular if it was dark,
because the witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good
to have folks around then.

It would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck
down into the woods; because Tom said we got to have _some_ light to
see how to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into
trouble; what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's
called fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay
them in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds,
and set down to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied:

"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be.
And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan.
There ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there _ought_ to be a
watchman. There ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And
there's Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of
his bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip
off the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to
the punkin-headed nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger.
Jim could 'a' got out of that window-hole before this, only there
wouldn't be no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg.
Why, drat it, Huck, it's the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You got
to invent _all_ the difficulties. Well, we can't help it; we got to do
the best we can with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's one
thing--there's more honor in getting him out through a lot of
difficulties and dangers, where there warn't one of them furnished to
you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and you had
to contrive them all out of your own head. Now look at just that one
thing of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we simply
got to _let on_ that a lantern's resky. Why, we could work with a
torchlight procession if we wanted to, _I_ believe. Now, whilst I
think of it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the
first chance we get."

"What do we want of a saw?"

"What do we _want_ of a saw? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed
off, so as to get the chain loose?"

"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the
chain off."

"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You _can_ get up the
infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read
any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto
Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of
getting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that?  No; the
way all the best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and
leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and
put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest
seneskal can't see no sign of its being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg
is perfectly sound. Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a
kick, down she goes; slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing
to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it,
break your leg in the moat--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too
short, you know--and there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and
they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to
your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck.
I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of
the escape, we'll dig one."

I says:

"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from
under the cabin?"

But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had
his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his
head; then sighs again, and says:

"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it."

"For what?" I says.

"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says.

"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't _no_ necessity for it. And what
would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?"

"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the
chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would
be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity
enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't
understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so
we'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we
can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we
can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've et
worse pies."

"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a
rope ladder."

"He _has_ got use for it. How _you_ talk, you better say; you don't
know nothing about it. He's _got_ to have a rope ladder; they all do."

"What in the nation can he _do_ with it?"

"_Do_ with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he? That's what they
all do; and _he's_ got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to
do anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh
all the time. S'pose he _don't_ do nothing with it? ain't it there in
his bed, for a clue, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll
want clues? Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That
would be a _pretty_ howdy-do, _wouldn't_ it! I never heard of such a
thing."

"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have it,
all right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no
regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up
our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble
with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at
it, a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing,
and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick,
as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no
experience, and so he don't care what kind of a--"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep
still--that's what I'd do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping
by a hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."

"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my
advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothes-line."

He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:

"Borrow a shirt, too."

"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"

"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."

"Journal your granny--_Jim_ can't write."

"S'pose he _can't_ write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if
we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron
barrel-hoop?"

"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better
one; and quicker, too."

"_Prisoners_ don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull
pens out of, you muggins. They _always_ make their pens out of the
hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or
something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them
weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because
they've got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. _They_ wouldn't use a
goose-quill if they had it. It ain't regular."

"Well, then, what 'll we make him the ink out of?"

"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort
and women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that;
and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious
message to let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it
on the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the
window. The Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame' good way,
too."

"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."

"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."

"Can't nobody _read_ his plates."

"That ain't got anything to _do_ with it, Huck Finn. All _he's_ got to
do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't _have_ to be
able to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner
writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else."

"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?"

"Why, blame it all, it ain't the _prisoner's_ plates."

"But it's _somebody's_ plates, ain't it?"

"Well, spos'n it is? What does the _prisoner_ care whose--"

He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we
cleared out for the house.

Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of
the clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we
went down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it
borrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it
warn't borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing
prisoners; and prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get
it, and nobody don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a
prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's
his right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a
perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for
to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners it
would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person
would steal when he warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal
everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss,
one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger patch
and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without
telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we
could steal anything we _needed._ Well, I says, I needed the
watermelon. But he said I didn't need it to get out of prison with;
there's where the difference was. He said if I'd 'a' wanted it to hide
a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would
'a' been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldn't see no
advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw
over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a
chance to hog a watermelon.

Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was
settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then
Tom he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to
keep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the
woodpile to talk. He says:

"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed."

"Tools?" I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

"Why, to dig with. We ain't a-going to _gnaw_ him out, are we?"

"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig
a nigger out with?" I says.

He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says:

"Huck Finn, did you _ever_ hear of a prisoner having picks and
shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig
himself out with?  Now I want to ask you--if you got any
reasonableness in you at all--what kind of a show would _that_ give
him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and done
with it. Picks and shovels--why, they wouldn't furnish 'em to a king."

"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do
we want?"

"A couple of case-knives."

"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?"

"Yes."

"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom."

"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the _right_
way--and it's the regular way. And there ain't no _other_ way, that
ever I heard of, and I've read all the books that gives any
information about these things. They always dig out with a
case-knife--and not through dirt, mind you; generly it's through solid
rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and
ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the
Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that
way; how long was _he_ at it, you reckon?"

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

"I don't know. A month and a half."

"_Thirty-seven year_--and he come out in China. _That's_ the kind. I
wish the bottom of _this_ fortress was solid rock."

"_Jim_ don't know nobody in China."

"What's _that_ got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But
you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to
the main point?"

"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he _comes_ out; and
Jim don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too
old to be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last."

"Yes he will _last,_ too. You don't reckon it's going to take
thirty-seven years to dig out through a _dirt_ foundation, do you?"

"How long will it take, Tom?"

"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't
take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans.
He'll hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to
advertise Jim, or something like that. So we can't resk being as long
digging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a
couple of years; but we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I
recommend is this: that we really dig right in, as quick as we can;
and after that, we can _let on_, to ourselves, that we was at it
thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush him away the
first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon that 'll be the best way."

"Now, there's _sense_ in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost
nothing; letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't
mind letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't
strain me none, after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and
smouch a couple of case-knives."

"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of."

"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says,
"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the
weather-boarding behind the smokehouse."

He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says:

"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and
smouch the knives--three of them." So I done it.

Tom discovers that Jim is being held in a small farm cabin, and the two boys discuss plans to free Jim from captivity. Huck's logical plan is to steal the keys from Uncle Silas, quickly unlock Jim, and immediately leave on the raft. Tom argues that the plan is too simple and as "mild as goosemilk." After they examine the cabin where Jim is being held, Huck suggests that they tear off one board for Jim to escape. Tom again argues that the plan is not complicated enough and then decides that they should dig Jim out because doing so will take a couple of weeks. When a slave brings food to Jim, the boys go along and whisper to Jim that they are going to set him free. Tom and Huck begin making plans for an elaborate escape, and each step becomes more complicated and time-consuming. Tom argues that Jim will need a rope ladder and other items such as case-knives and a journal, because the escape must be done just like the prison novels he has read.

The opportunity to burlesque Tom's romanticism and infuse humor back into the novel comes at the price of Jim's perceived freedom. In actuality, Jim has already been set free by the late Miss Watson's will, and readers will learn this startling fact at the end of the novel. However, because both Huck and Jim are unaware of Jim's freedom, they agree to follow Tom's extravagant plans for a dramatic escape. The elaborate escape plan provides Tom the opportunity to call upon several of the prison stories and adventure novels he has read. By combining unnecessary tactics such as a tunnel and devices such as a rope ladder, the entire plan becomes a comical romantic farce. The incongruity of Huck's logic in the face of Tom's imagination creates several humorous exchanges, and the farce is reminiscent of Twain's earlier work with Tom Sawyer. For example, when Tom says that Jim needs to keep a journal, Huck replies, "Journal your granny -- Jim can't write." Huck's practical response is both humorous and revealing at the same time. On the surface, it is obvious that Jim does not need to keep a journal, but the fact that Jim is captive during this time is an overriding shadow on the slapstick humor. The ability to read and write was not common among anyone in the mid-1800s, and because Jim is a slave, his being able to write is much more unlikely. More important, however, is the realization that Huck cannot stop the nonsensical plans because he and Jim are trapped within the confines of a racist society. Neither Huck nor Jim is able to dissuade or alter Tom's plans except in minor ways, and their failed attempts symbolize their ill-fated efforts to truly escape civilization's conventions. The biting satire is obvious when Huck wonders about the logic of digging a tunnel with ordinary case-knives. When he questions Tom, Tom replies that "It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the right way . . . . And there ain't no other way, that ever I heard of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these things." As a representative of proper society, Tom summarizes civilization's reliance on tradition and existing laws that have been recorded, despite their lack of humanity and compassion. Glossary fox-fire the luminescence of decaying wood and plant remains, caused by various fungi. seneskal seneschal, a steward or major-domo in the household of a medieval noble. Langudoc Languedoc, historical region of southern France. Navarre historical region and former kingdom in northeast Spain and southwest France.


the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 36-38 | study guide | cliffsnotes

As soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down
the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out
our pile of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of
the way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log.
Tom said we was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it,
and when we got through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know
there was any hole there, because Jim's counterpin hung down most to
the ground, and you'd have to raise it up and look under to see the
hole. So we dug and dug with the case-knives till most midnight; and
then we was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you
couldn't see we'd done anything hardly. At last I says:

"This ain't no thirty-seven-year job; this is a thirty-eight-year job,
Tom Sawyer."

He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped
digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was
thinking. Then he says:

"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners
it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no
hurry; and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while
they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered,
and we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it
right, and the way it ought to be done. But _we_ can't fool along; we
got to rush; we ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in
another night this way we'd have to knock off for a week to let our
hands get well--couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner."

"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?"

"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't
like it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to
dig him out with the picks, and _let on_ it's case-knives."

"_Now_ you're _talking!_" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler
all the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no
moral; and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it,
nohow. When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a
Sunday-school book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's
done. What I want is my nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or
what I want is my Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest
thing, that's the thing I'm a-going to dig that nigger or that
watermelon or that Sunday-school book out with; and I don't give a
dead rat what the authorities thinks about it nuther."

"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting on in a case
like this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't
stand by and see the rules broke--because right is right, and wrong is
wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't
ignorant and knows better. It might answer for _you_ to dig Jim out
with a pick, _without_ any letting on, because you don't know no
better; but it wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a
case-knife."

He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and
says:

"Gimme a _case-knife._"

I didn't know just what to do--but then I thought. I scratched around
amongst the old tools, and got a pickax and give it to him, and he
took it and went to work, and never said a word.

He was always just that particular. Full of principle.

So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about,
and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was
as long as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show
for it. When I got up-stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom
doing his level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it,
his hands was so sore. At last he says:

"It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do? Can't
you think of no way?"

"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and
let on it's a lightning-rod."

So he done it.

Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the
house, for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles;
and I hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole
three tin plates. Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody
wouldn't ever see the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall
in the dog-fennel and jimpson weeds under the window-hole--then we
could tote them back and he could use them over again. So Tom was
satisfied. Then he says:

"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim."

"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done."

He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever
heard of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By and by
he said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no
need to decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first.

That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took
one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and
heard Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then
we whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a
half the job was done. We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin,
and pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim
awhile, and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him
up gentle and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried; and
called us honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for
having us hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with
right away, and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he
showed him how unregular it would be, and set down and told him all
about our plans, and how we could alter them in a minute any time
there was an alarm; and not to be the least afraid, because we would
see he got away, _sure_. So Jim he said it was all right, and we set
there and talked over old times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of
questions, and when Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or two
to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable
and had plenty to eat, and both of them was kind as they could be, Tom
says:

"_Now_ I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them."

I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass
ideas I ever struck"; but he never paid no attention to me; went right
on. It was his way when he'd got his plans set.

So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and
other large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on
the lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them;
and we would put small things in uncle's coat pockets and he must
steal them out; and we would tie things to aunt's apron-strings or put
them in her apron pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they
would be and what they was for. And told him how to keep a journal on
the shirt with his blood, and all that. He told him everything. Jim he
couldn't see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white
folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he
would do it all just as Tom said.

Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good
sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to
bed, with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high
spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the
most intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we
would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our
children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it better
and better the more he got used to it. He said that in that way it
could be strung out to as much as eighty year, and would be the best
time on record. And he said it would make us all celebrated that had a
hand in it.

In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass
candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in
his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's
notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a
corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how
it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most
mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could 'a'
worked better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it
was only just a piece of rock or something like that that's always
getting into bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing
but what he jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first.

And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a
couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on
piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room
in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that
lean-to door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and
keeled over onto the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like
he was dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's
meat, and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself
and back again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other
door too. Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting
him, and asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again. He
raised up, and blinked his eyes around, and says:

"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a
million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in
dese tracks. I did, mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I _felt_ um--I _felt_ um,
sah; dey was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my
han's on one er dem witches jis' wunst--on'y jis' wunst--it's all I'd
ast. But mos'ly I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does."

Tom says:

"Well, I tell you what _I_ think. What makes them come here just at
this runaway nigger's breakfast-time? It's because they're hungry;
that's the reason. You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for
_you_ to do."

"But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie? I doan'
know how to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'."

"Well, then, I'll have to make it myself."

"Will you do it, honey?--will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo'
foot, I will!"

[Illustration: TOM ADVISES A WITCH PIE]

"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us
and showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful.
When we come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put
in the pan, don't you let on you see it at all. And don't you look
when Jim unloads the pan--something might happen, I don't know what.
And above all, don't you _handle_ the witch-things."

"_Hannel_ 'm, Mars Sid? What _is_ you a-talkin' 'bout? I wouldn' lay
de weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion
dollars, I wouldn't."

_That_ was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the
rubbage-pile in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and
rags, and pieces of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such
truck, and scratched around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped
up the holes as well as we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down
cellar and stole it full of flour and started for breakfast, and found
a couple of shingle-nails that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner
to scrabble his name and sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and
dropped one of them in Aunt Sally's apron pocket which was hanging on
a chair, and t'other we stuck in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which
was on the bureau, because we heard the children say their pa and ma
was going to the runaway nigger's house this morning, and then went to
breakfast, and Tom dropped the pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat
pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come yet, so we had to wait a little
while.

And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly
wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with
one hand and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with
the other, and says:

"I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what _has_
become of your other shirt."

My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard
piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the
road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the
children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a
cry out of him the size of a war-whoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue
around the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of
things for about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would
'a' sold out for half price if there was a bidder. But after that we
was all right again--it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us
so kind of cold. Uncle Silas he says:

"It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it. I know perfectly
well I took it _off_, because--"

"Because you hain't got but one _on_. Just _listen_ at the man! I know
you took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering
memory, too, because it was on the clo's-line yesterday--I see it
there myself. But it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and
you'll just have to change to a red flann'l one till I can get time to
make a new one. And it 'll be the third I've made in two years. It
just keeps a body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you
do manage to _do_ with 'm all is more'n I can make out. A body'd think
you _would_ learn to take some sort of care of 'em at your time of
life."

"I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn't to be
altogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have
nothing to do with them except when they're on me; and I don't believe
I've ever lost one of them _off_ of me."

"Well, it ain't _your_ fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd 'a' done it
if you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther.
Ther's a spoon gone; and _that_ ain't all. There was ten, and now
ther' only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never
took the spoon, _that's_ certain."

"Why, what else is gone, Sally?"

"Ther's six _candles_ gone--that's what. The rats could 'a' got the
candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the
whole place, the way you're always going to stop their holes and don't
do it; and if they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair,
Silas--_you'd_ never find it out; but you can't lay the _spoon_ on the
rats, and that I _know_."

"Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss;
but I won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes."

"Oh, I wouldn't hurry; next year 'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta
_Phelps!_"

Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the
sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman
steps onto the passage, and says:

"Missus, dey's a sheet gone."

"A _sheet_ gone! Well, for the land's sake!"

"I'll stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful.

"Oh, _do_ shet up!--s'pose the rats took the _sheet?_ _Where's_ it
gone, Lize?"

"Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally. She wuz on de
clo's-line yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain' dah no mo' now."

"I reckon the world _is_ coming to an end. I _never_ see the beat of
it in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six
can--"

"Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick
miss'n."

"Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!"

Well, she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned I
would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She
kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself,
and everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas,
looking kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She
stopped, with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished
I was in Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says:

"It's _just_ as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time;
and like as not you've got the other things there, too. How'd it get
there?"

"I reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you
know I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen
before breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing,
meaning to put my Testament in, and it must be so, because my
Testament ain't in; but I'll go and see; and if the Testament is where
I had it, I'll know I didn't put it in, and that will show that I laid
the Testament down and took up the spoon, and--"

"Oh, for the land's sake! Give a body a rest! Go 'long now, the whole
kit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back
my peace of mind."

I'd 'a' heard her if she'd 'a' said it to herself, let alone speaking
it out; and I'd 'a' got up and obeyed her if I'd 'a' been dead. As we
was passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat,
and the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked
it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and
went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says:

"Well, it ain't no use to send things by _him_ no more, he ain't
reliable." Then he says: "But he done us a good turn with the spoon,
anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without
_him_ knowing it--stop up his rat-holes."

There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole
hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard
steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes
the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in
t'other, looking as absent-minded as year before last. He went
a-mooning around, first to one rat-hole and then another, till he'd
been to them all. Then he stood about five minutes, picking
tallow-drip off of his candle and thinking. Then he turns off slow and
dreamy towards the stairs, saying:

"Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. I could
show her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. But never
mind--let it go. I reckon it wouldn't do no good."

And so he went on a-mumbling up-stairs, and then we left. He was a
mighty nice old man. And always is.

Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said
we'd got to have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out
he told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the
spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to
counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of
them up my sleeve, and Tom says:

"Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons _yet_."

She says:

"Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me. I know better, I counted
'm myself."

"Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and _I_ can't make but nine."

She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to
count--anybody would.

"I declare to gracious ther' _ain't_ but nine!" she says. "Why, what
in the world--plague _take_ the things, I'll count 'm again."

So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she
says:

"Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther's _ten_ now!" and she looked huffy
and bothered both. But Tom says:

"Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten."

"You numskull, didn't you see me _count_ 'm?"

"I know, but--"

"Well, I'll count 'm again."

So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time.
Well, she _was_ in a tearing way--just a-trembling all over, she was
so mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd
start to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three
times they come out right, and three times they come out wrong. Then
she grabbed up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked
the cat galley-west; and she said cler out and let her have some
peace, and if we come bothering around her again betwixt that and
dinner she'd skin us. So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her
apron pocket whilst she was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim
got it all right, along with her shingle-nail, before noon. We was
very well satisfied with this business, and Tom allowed it was worth
twice the trouble it took, because he said _now_ she couldn't ever
count them spoons twice alike again to save her life; and wouldn't
believe she'd counted them right if she _did_; and said that after
she'd about counted her head off for the next three days he judged
she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody that wanted her to ever
count them any more.

So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of
her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a
couple of days till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more,
and she didn't _care_, and warn't a-going to bullyrag the rest of her
soul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life;
she druther die first.

So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon
and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up
counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it
would blow over by and by.

But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We
fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it
done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and
we had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through,
and we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out
with the smoke; because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust,
and we couldn't prop it up right, and she would always cave in. But of
course we thought of the right way at last--which was to cook the
ladder, too, in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim the second night,
and tore up the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together,
and long before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could 'a' hung
a person with. We let on it took nine months to make it.

And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go
into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope
enough for forty pies if we'd 'a' wanted them, and plenty left over
for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could 'a' had a whole
dinner.

But we didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and
so we throwed the rest away. We didn't cook none of the pies in the
washpan--afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noble
brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it
belonged to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come
over from England with William the Conqueror in the _Mayflower_ or one
of them early ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old
pots and things that was valuable, not on account of being any
account, because they warn't, but on account of them being relicts,
you know, and we snaked her out, private, and took her down there, but
she failed on the first pies, because we didn't know how, but she come
up smiling on the last one. We took and lined her with dough, and set
her in the coals, and loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough
roof, and shut down the lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off
five foot, with the long handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen
minutes she turned out a pie that was a satisfaction to look at. But
the person that et it would want to fetch a couple of kags of
toothpicks along, for if that rope ladder wouldn't cramp him down to
business I don't know nothing what I'm talking about, and lay him in
enough stomach-ache to last him till next time, too. Nat didn't look
when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put the three tin
plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim got
everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted into
the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, and
scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the
window-hole.

Making them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and
Jim allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all.
That's the one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he
had to have it; Tom said he'd _got_ to; there warn't no case of a
state prisoner not scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his
coat of arms.

"Look at Lady Jane Grey," he says; "look at Gilford Dudley; look at
old Northumberland! Why, Huck, s'pose it _is_ considerble
trouble?--what you going to do?--how you going to get around it? Jim's
_got_ to do his inscription and coat of arms. They all do."

Jim says:

"Why, Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arm; I hain't got nuffn but
dish yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat."

"Oh, you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different."

"Well," I says, "Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no
coat of arms, because he hain't."

"I reckon I knowed that," Tom says, "but you bet he'll have one before
he goes out of this--because he's going out _right_, and there ain't
going to be no flaws in his record."

So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim
a-making his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon,
Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms. By and by he said he'd
struck so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but
there was one which he reckoned he'd decide on. He says:

"On the scutcheon we'll have a bend _or_ in the dexter base, a saltire
_murrey_ in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and
under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron _vert_
in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field _azure_,
with the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a
runaway nigger, _sable_, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar
sinister; and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me;
motto, _Maggiore fretta, minore atto_. Got it out of a book--means the
more haste the less speed."

"Geewhillikins," I says, "but what does the rest of it mean?"

"We ain't got no time to bother over that," he says; "we got to dig in
like all git-out."

"Well, anyway," I says, "what's _some_ of it? What's a fess?"

"A fess--a fess is--_you_ don't need to know what a fess is. I'll show
him how to make it when he gets to it."

"Shucks, Tom," I says, "I think you might tell a person. What's a bar
sinister?"

"Oh, I don't know. But he's got to have it. All the nobility does."

That was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to
you, he wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make
no difference. He'd got all that coat-of-arms business fixed, so now
he started in to finish up the rest of that part of the work, which
was to plan out a mournful inscription--said Jim got to have one, like
they all done. He made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and
read them off, so:

  _1. Here a captive heart busted.

   2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and
   friends, fretted his sorrowful life.

   3. Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went
   to its rest, after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity.

   4. Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven
   years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger,
   natural son of Louis XIV._

Tom's voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke
down. When he got done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one
for Jim to scrabble onto the wall, they was all so good; but at last
he allowed he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would
take him a year to scrabble such a lot of truck onto the logs with a
nail, and he didn't know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he
would block them out for him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do
but just follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says:

"Come to think, the logs ain't a-going to do; they don't have log
walls in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We'll
fetch a rock." Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it
would take him such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he
wouldn't ever get out. But Tom said he would let me help him do it.
Then he took a look to see how me and Jim was getting along with the
pens. It was most pesky tedious hard work and slow, and didn't give my
hands no show to get well of the sores, and we didn't seem to make no
headway, hardly; so Tom says:

"I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and
mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock.
There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it,
and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it,
too."

It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a
grindstone nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite
midnight yet, so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We
smouched the grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a
most nation tough job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep
her from falling over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time.
Tom said she was going to get one of us, sure, before we got through.
We got her halfway; and then we was plumb played out, and most
drownded with sweat. We see it warn't no use; we got to go and fetch
Jim. So he raised up his bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg,
and wrapt it round and round his neck, and we crawled out through our
hole and down there, and Jim and me laid into that grindstone and
walked her along like nothing; and Tom superintended. He could
out-superintend any boy I ever see. He knowed how to do everything.

Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the
grindstone through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big
enough. Then Tom marked out them things on it with the nail, and set
Jim to work on them, with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from
the rubbage in the lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the
rest of his candle quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide
the grindstone under his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped
him fix his chain back on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed
ourselves. But Tom thought of something, and says:

"You got any spiders in here, Jim?"

"No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom."

"All right, we'll get you some."

"But bless you, honey, I doan' _want_ none. I's afeard un um. I jis'
's soon have rattlesnakes aroun'."

Tom thought a minute or two, and says:

"It's a good idea. And I reckon it's been done. It _must_ 'a' been
done; it stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could
you keep it?"

"Keep what, Mars Tom?"

"Why, a rattlesnake."

"De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake
to come in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would,
wid my head."

"Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little. You could tame
it."

"_Tame_ it!"

"Yes--easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting,
and they wouldn't _think_ of hurting a person that pets them. Any book
will tell you that. You try--that's all I ask; just try for two or
three days. Why, you can get him so in a little while that he'll love
you; and sleep with you; and won't stay away from you a minute; and
will let you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth."

"_Please_, Tom--_doan_' talk so! I can't _stan'_ it! He'd _let_ me
shove his head in my mouf--fer a favor, hain't it? I lay he'd wait a
pow'ful long time 'fo' I _ast_ him. En mo' en dat, I doan' _want_ him
to sleep wid me."

"Jim, don't act so foolish. A prisoner's _got_ to have some kind of a
dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's
more glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than
any other way you could ever think of to save your life."

"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' _want_ no sich glory. Snake take 'n bite Jim's
chin off, den _whah_ is de glory? No, sah, I doan' want no sich
doin's."

"Blame it, can't you _try?_ I only _want_ you to try--you needn't keep
it up if it don't work."

"But de trouble all _done_ ef de snake bite me while I's a-tryin' him.
Mars Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable,
but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's
gwyne to _leave_, dat's _shore_."

"Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bull-headed about it.
We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on
their tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll
have to do."

"I k'n stan' _dem_, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout
um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b'fo' 'twas so much bother and
trouble to be a prisoner."

"Well, it _always_ is when it's done right. You got any rats around
here?"

"No, sah, I hain't seed none."

"Well, we'll get you some rats."

"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' _want_ no rats. Dey's de dadblamedest creturs
to 'sturb a body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet, when
he's tryin' to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes, 'f
I's got to have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats; I hain' got no use f'r
um, skasely."

"But, Jim, you _got_ to have 'em--they all do. So don't make no more
fuss about it. Prisoners ain't ever without rats. There ain't no
instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them
tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play
music to them. You got anything to play music on?"

"I ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a
juice-harp; but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp."

"Yes they would. _They_ don't care what kind of music 'tis. A
jews-harp's plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music--in a
prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music; and you can't get no
other kind out of a jew's-harp. It always interests them; they come
out to see what's the matter with you. Yes, you're all right; you're
fixed very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to
sleep, and early in the mornings, and play your jew's-harp; play 'The
Last Link is Broken'--that's the thing that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n
anything else; and when you've played about two minutes you'll see all
the rats, and the snakes, and spiders and things begin to feel worried
about you, and come. And they'll just fairly swarm over you, and have
a noble good time."

"Yes, _dey_ will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is _Jim_
havin'? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I'll do it ef I got to. I
reck'n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in
de house."

Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else; and
pretty soon he says:

"Oh, there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you
reckon?"

"I doan' know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolable dark in
heah, en I ain' got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful
sight o' trouble."

"Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it."

"One er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah,
Mars Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd
coss."

"Don't you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it
in the corner over there, and raise it. And don't call it mullen, call
it Pitchiola--that's its right name when it's in a prison. And you
want to water it with your tears."

"Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom."

"You don't _want_ spring water; you want to water it with your tears.
It's the way they always do."

"Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid
spring water whiles another man's a start'n one wid tears."

"That ain't the idea. You _got_ to do it with tears."

"She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan'
skasely ever cry."

So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would
have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised he
would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's
coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have
tobacker in his coffee"; and found so much fault with it, and with the
work and bother of raising the mullen, and jew's-harping the rats, and
petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of
all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and
journals, and things, which made it more trouble and worry and
responsibility to be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that
Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened
down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world
to make a name for himself, and yet he didn't know enough to
appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him. So Jim he was
sorry, and said he wouldn't behave so no more, and then me and Tom
shoved for bed.

The next evening, Tom and Huck try to use the case-knives to dig a tunnel under the cabin, but after a few hours, they realize they need better tools. Tom decides they will use pick-axes and shovels and pretend that they are case-knives. The next night, Tom and Huck easily dig into Jim's cabin and wake him. Jim listens to Tom's plans and agrees to go along with them even though he thinks they do not make sense. Tom assures Jim that they will change the plans immediately if something goes wrong. The boys begin smuggling "escape" tools into the cabin, and Aunt Sally notices that items are missing from the house. To confuse her, Tom and Huck continually take and replace sheets and spoons until Aunt Sally does not know how many she had to start with. Finally they tear up one of the sheets and smuggle it into Jim's cabin along with some tins plates. Following Tom's instructions on how to write mysterious messages, Jim marks on the tin plates and then throws them out the window. The next day, Tom continues to find new distractions for Jim's escape. Tom writes down some inscriptions for Jim to carve into the wall but then realizes the walls are wooden. To be done properly and according to the books, Tom says they must have stone. The boys try to roll a large grindstone into the cabin but are not strong enough. Jim climbs out of the cabin and helps them roll the stone the rest of the way. Despite Jim's protests, Tom decides that the cabin needs other residents, including spiders and snakes, in order to make it a proper dungeon and Jim a proper prisoner.

In Chapters 36 through 38, the novel slips further into the farce as neither Huck nor Jim understand why they must perform all of these ludicrous acts before Jim can escape. Ironically, Huck and Jim view Tom as a representative of society and education, and because of this, they feel that Tom must know the best way for them to escape. Jim's continued enslavement is both absurd and grotesque and is a harsh comment on the racial condition of post-Civil War America. As mentioned earlier, Miss Watson has already set Jim free in her will, but the ability to transcend and change society's perception is not as easily accomplished. Jim, therefore, remains captive to others despite the fact that he has, indeed, been freed. It is important to remember that Huck Finn was written in the 20 years following the Civil War, and the entire novel reflects Twain's own post-Civil War observations. Although the Union made some attempt at Southern reconstruction, the South quickly fell into a squalid and segregated ruin. Conditions for newly freed slaves were no doubt improved, but the longed-for freedom had not come with changed perceptions, acceptance, or equality. Glossary dog-fennel any of several weeds or wildflowers of the composite family, having daisylike flower heads. scutcheon escutcheon a shield or shield-shaped surface on which a coat of arms is displayed. juice harp jew's harp, a small musical instrument consisting of a lyre-shaped metal frame held between the teeth and played by plucking a projecting bent piece with the finger. mullen stalks stalks of the mullein, a tall plant of the figwort family, with spikes of yellow, lavender, or white flowers.


the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 39-40 | study guide | cliffsnotes

In the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap
and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an
hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it
and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was
gone for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander
Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats
would come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we
got back she was a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the
rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for her. So
she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two
hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub,
and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the
pick of the flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that
first haul was.

We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and
caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet's
nest, but we didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it right
up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd
tire them out or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it. Then we
got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all
right again, but couldn't set down convenient. And so we went for the
snakes, and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and
put them in a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was
supper-time, and a rattling good honest day's work: and hungry?--oh,
no, I reckon not! And there warn't a blessed snake up there when we
went back--we didn't half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow,
and left. But it didn't matter much, because they was still on the
premises somewheres. So we judged we could get some of them again. No,
there warn't no real scarcity of snakes about the house for a
considerable spell. You'd see them dripping from the rafters and
places every now and then; and they generly landed in your plate, or
down the back of your neck, and most of the time where you didn't want
them. Well, they was handsome and striped, and there warn't no harm in
a million of them; but that never made no difference to Aunt Sally;
she despised snakes, be the breed what they might, and she couldn't
stand them no way you could fix it; and every time one of them flopped
down on her, it didn't make no difference what she was doing, she
would just lay that work down and light out. I never see such a woman.
And you could hear her whoop to Jericho. You couldn't get her to take
a-holt of one of them with the tongs. And if she turned over and found
one in bed she would scramble out and lift a howl that you would think
the house was afire. She disturbed the old man so that he said he
could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes created. Why, after
every last snake had been gone clear out of the house for as much as a
week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she warn't near over it; when she
was setting thinking about something you could touch her on the back
of her neck with a feather and she would jump right out of her
stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all women was just so. He
said they was made that way for some reason or other.

We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she
allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever
loaded up the place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings,
because they didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we had
to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in, and all the other
things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when
they'd all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like the
spiders, and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him,
and make it mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and
the snakes and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him,
skasely; and when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively,
and it was always lively, he said, because _they_ never all slept at
one time, but took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats
was on deck, and when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so
he always had one gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having
a circus over him, and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders
would take a chance at him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got
out this time he wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary.

Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape.
The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he
would get up and write a line in his journal whilst the ink was fresh;
the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the
grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the
sawdust, and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We reckoned we
was all going to die, but didn't. It was the most undigestible sawdust
I ever see; and Tom said the same. But as I was saying, we'd got all
the work done now, at last; and we was all pretty much fagged out,
too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote a couple of times to the
plantation below Orleans to come and get their runaway nigger, but
hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such plantation; so he
allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and New Orleans
papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me the cold
shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now for the
nonnamous letters.

"What's them?" I says.

"Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one
way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that
gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going
to light out of the Tooleries a servant-girl done it. It's a very good
way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And it's
usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she
stays in, and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too."

"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to _warn_ anybody for that
something's up? Let them find it out for themselves--it's their
lookout."

"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted
from the very start--left us to do _everything_. They're so confiding
and mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we
don't _give_ them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to
interfere with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this
escape 'll go off perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing--won't be
nothing _to_ it."

"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like."

"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted. So I says:

"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits
me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?"

"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook
that yaller girl's frock."

"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she
prob'bly hain't got any but that one."

"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the
nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door."

"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my
own togs."

"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?"

"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_."

"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just
to do our _duty_, and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it
or not. Hain't you got no principle at all?"

"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl. Who's Jim's
mother?"

"I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally."

"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves."

"Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his
bed to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger
woman's gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When
a prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion. It's always called
so when a king escapes, f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son;
it don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural
one."

So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller
wench's frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front
door, the way Tom told me to. It said:

   _Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout.
      UNKNOWN FRIEND._

Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull
and crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a
coffin on the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They
couldn't 'a' been worse scared if the place had 'a' been full of
ghosts laying for them behind everything and under the beds and
shivering through the air. If a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and
said "ouch!" if anything fell, she jumped and said "ouch!" if you
happened to touch her, when she warn't noticing, she done the same;
she couldn't face no way and be satisfied, because she allowed there
was something behind her every time--so she was always a-whirling
around sudden, and saying "ouch," and before she'd got two-thirds
around she'd whirl back again, and say it again; and she was afraid to
go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the thing was working very well,
Tom said; he said he never see a thing work more satisfactory. He said
it showed it was done right.

So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the
streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we
better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going
to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down
the lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was
asleep, and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This
letter said:

_Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang
of cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your
runaway nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as
you will stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang,
but have got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life
again, and will betray the helish design. They will sneak down from
northards, along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and
go in the nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a
tin horn if I see any danger; but stead of that I will BA like a sheep
soon as they get in and not blow at all; then whilst they are getting
his chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them
at your leasure. Don't do anything but just the way I am telling you;
if you do they will suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I
do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.

UNKNOWN FRIEND._

We was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went
over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took
a look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to
supper, and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know
which end they was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the
minute we was done supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was,
and never let on a word about the new letter, but didn't need to,
because we knowed as much about it as anybody did, and as soon as we
was half up-stairs and her back was turned we slid for the cellar
cubboard and loaded up a good lunch and took it up to our room and
went to bed, and got up about half past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt
Sally's dress that he stole and was going to start with the lunch, but
says:

"Where's the butter?"

"I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone."

"Well, you _left_ it laid out, then--it ain't here."

"We can get along without it," I says.

"We can get along _with_ it, too," he says; "just you slide down
cellar and fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and
come along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to
represent his mother in disguise, and be ready to _ba_ like a sheep
and shove soon as you get there."

So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as a
person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of
corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up-stairs
very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes
Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and
clapped my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she
says:

"You been down cellar?"

"Yes'm."

"What you been doing down there?"

"Noth'n."

"_Noth'n!_"

"No'm."

"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?"

"I don't know 'm."

"You don't _know?_ Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what
you been _doing_ down there."

"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if
I have."

I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I
s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a
sweat about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she
says, very decided:

"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You
been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what
it is before _I'm_ done with you."

So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the
setting-room. My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and
every one of them had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a
chair and set down. They was setting around, some of them talking a
little, in a low voice, and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying
to look like they warn't; but I knowed they was, because they was
always taking off their hats, and putting them on, and scratching
their heads, and changing their seats, and fumbling with their
buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I didn't take my hat off, all the
same.

I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me,
if she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone
this thing, and what a thundering hornet's nest we'd got ourselves
into, so we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with
Jim before these rips got out of patience and come for us.

At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I _couldn't_
answer them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because
these men was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start
right _now_ and lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a
few minutes to midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on
and wait for the sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the
questions, and me a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my
tracks I was that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and
the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears;
and pretty soon, when one of them says, "_I'm_ for going and getting
in the cabin _first_ and right _now_, and catching them when they
come," I most dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my
forehead, and Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and
says:

"For the land's sake, what _is_ the matter with the child? He's got
the brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!"

And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes
the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and
hugged me, and says:

"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it
ain't no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it
pours, and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed
by the color and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear,
dear, whyd'nt you _tell_ me that was what you'd been down there for,
_I_ wouldn't 'a' cared. Now cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no
more of you till morning!"

I was up-stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another
one, and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly
get my words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could
we must jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of
men, yonder, with guns!

His eyes just blazed; and he says:

"No!--is that so? _Ain't_ it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over
again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till--"

"Hurry! _hurry!_" I says. "Where's Jim?"

"Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him.
He's dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the
sheep-signal."

But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them
begin to fumble with the padlock, and heard a man say:

"I _told_ you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked.
Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the
dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece,
and listen if you can hear 'em coming."

So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on us
whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all
right, and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next,
and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the
lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the
door, and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but
couldn't make out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he
would listen for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim
must glide out first, and him last. So he set his ear to the crack and
listened, and listened, and listened, and the steps a-scraping around
out there all the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, and
stooped down, not breathing, and not making the least noise, and
slipped stealthy towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all
right, and me and Jim over it; but Tom's britches catched fast on a
splinter on the top rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had
to pull loose, which snapped the splinter and made a noise; and as he
dropped in our tracks and started somebody sings out:

"Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot!"

But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then
there was a rush, and a _bang,_ _bang,_ _bang!_ and the bullets fairly
whizzed around us! We heard them sing out:

"Here they are! They've broke for the river! After 'em, boys, and turn
loose the dogs!"

So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore
boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was
in the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close onto us we
dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind
them. They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the
robbers; but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here they
come, making powwow enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we
stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see it
warn't nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just
said howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering;
and then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was
nearly to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my
canoe was tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the
middle of the river, but didn't make no more noise than we was
obleeged to. Then we struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island
where my raft was; and we could hear them yelling and barking at each
other all up and down the bank, till we was so far away the sounds got
dim and died out. And when we stepped onto the raft I says:

"Now, old Jim, you're a free man _again_, and I bet you won't ever be
a slave no more."

"En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en
it 'uz _done_ beautiful; en dey ain't _nobody_ kin git up a plan dat's
mo' mixed up en splendid den what dat one wuz."

We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all
because he had a bullet in the calf of his leg.

When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel as brash as what we did
before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him
in the wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him,
but he says:

"Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don't stop now; don't fool around
here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and
set her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did. I wish _we'd_
'a' had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't 'a' been no 'Son of
Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!' wrote down in _his_ biography; no,
sir, we'd 'a' whooped him over the _border_--that's what we'd 'a' done
with _him_--and done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the
sweeps--man the sweeps!"

But me and Jim was consulting--and thinking. And after we'd thought a
minute, I says:

"Say it, Jim."

So he says:

"Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz _him_ dat 'uz
bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go
on en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one'? Is dat
like Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You _bet_ he wouldn't! _Well_,
den, is _Jim_ gywne to say it? No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n dis
place 'dout a _doctor_; not if it's forty year!"

I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did
say--so it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a
doctor. He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to
it and wouldn't budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft
loose himself; but we wouldn't let him. Then he give us a piece of his
mind, but it didn't do no good.

So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says:

"Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when
you get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight
and fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a
purse full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around
the back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here
in the canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him
and take his chalk away from him, and don't give it back to him till
you get him back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he
can find it again. It's the way they all do."

So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he
see the doctor coming till he was gone again.

Tom and Huck capture several rats to put in Jim's cabin, but one of the Phelps boys finds the box and lets all of the rats free into the house. After several creatures are accidentally freed in the Phelps' house, Tom and Huck finally capture enough rats, spiders, and snakes, and put them in Jim's cabin. Jim complains that there is not enough room for him, and if he ever becomes free he "wouldn't ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary." After three weeks, everything is finally ready for the grand escape. To finish off the scheme, Tom writes an anonymous letter to the Phelps saying that a "desperate gang of cutthroats" will attempt to steal Jim out of the cabin. Huck returns to the house to pick up some butter and finds that the Phelps have gathered 15 men to battle the gang of cutthroats. Alarmed, Huck sneaks out the window and warns Tom that the men are here, and they must all escape immediately. When the men come to the cabin, Jim and the boys slip out of the hole and head for the river amidst shouts and gunshots. They make it to the raft but then discover that Tom has been shot in the calf. Tom tells them to shove off, but Jim will not leave until a doctor has looked at Tom.

The entire Phelps' household is in complete disarray when the escape actually begins. In this manner, the novel has moved even further from the peaceful tranquility of the raft and the river to the chaos of society and the shore. Symbolizing the clash between Romanticism and Realism, Huck and Tom continue to display juxtaposing approaches to the escape and the situation. The arrival of a town posse frightens Huck, but Tom is delighted. When Huck tells Tom that the house is full of men with guns, Tom replies, "Ain't it bully!" as if the entire escape is a dramatic work of fiction. Although readers have already recognized Jim as compassionate and caring, Chapter 40 reinforces Jim's qualities of bravery and loyalty. When they discover that Tom has been shot, Jim adamantly refuses to leave and says, "I doan' budge a step out'n dis place 'dout a doctor; not if it's forty year!" The statement reinforces Jim as a heroic figure capable of sacrifice. Glossary allycumpain elecampane, a tall, hairy perennial plant of the composite family, having flower heads with many slender, yellow rays.