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._

Huck and Tom capture rats and snakes to put in the shed with the captive Jim and accidentally infest the Phelps house with them. Aunt Sally falls into a panic over the disorder in her household, while Jim hardly has room to move with all the wildlife in his shed. Uncle Silas, not having heard back from the plantation from which the leaflet said Jim ran away, plans to advertise Jim as a captured runaway in the New Orleans and St. Louis newspapers--the latter of which would surely reach Miss Watson in St. Petersburg. Tom, partly to thwart Silas and partly because the books he has read say to do so, puts the last part of his plan into action, writing letters from an "unknown friend" that warn of trouble to the Phelpses. The letters terrify the family. Tom finishes with a longer letter pretending to be from a member of a band of desperate gangsters who are planning to steal Jim. The letter's purported author claims to have found religion, so he wishes to offer information to help thwart the theft. The letter goes on to detail when and how the imaginary thieves will try to seize Jim


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.

Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas, rattled by the mysterious letter, send Tom and Huck to bed right after supper. Later that night, Huck sees that fifteen uneasy local farmers with guns have gathered in the front room of the house. Huck goes to the shed to warn Jim and Tom, but news of the armed men only excites Tom even more. Suddenly, the men attack the shed. In the darkness, Tom, Huck, and Jim escape through the hole they cut in the wall. Tom makes a noise going over the fence, attracting the attention of the men, who shoot at the boys and Jim as they run. They make it to their canoe and set off downstream toward the island where the raft is hidden. They delight in their success, especially Tom, who has a bullet in the leg as a souvenir. Huck and Jim are concerned about Tom's wound, and Jim says they should get a doctor, since Tom would if the situation were reversed. Jim's statement confirms Huck's belief that Jim is "white inside

The ending of Huckleberry Finn reveals Tom to be even more callous and manipulative than we realized. The bullet in Tom's leg seems rather deserved when Tom reveals that he has known all along that Miss Watson has been dead for two months and that she freed Jim in her will. Tom's confession reveals a new depth of cruelty: he treats blacks only a little better than slaveholders do, using Jim as a plaything to indulge in a great "adventure." Tom's claim that he meant to pay Jim for his troubles is surely of little consolation to anyone, and indeed, the very idea of making up for such callousness with money is deeply insulting. However, no one ever chastises Tom for his behavior. Instead, he turns the bullet--the symbol of the fine line between fun and foolishness--into a trophy, and he proposes to Huck that they go look for more adventures among the "Injuns," another people ravaged and oppressed by whites. At the end of the novel, Tom seems to be beyond reform, Huck opts out of society in his desire to go to Oklahoma, and the other adults are left in compromised positions. Jim is the only character who comes out of the mess looking like a respectable adult. By helping the doctor treat Tom and shielding Huck from seeing his father's corpse, Jim yet again affirms that he is a decent human being. The Phelpses, although they immediately try to make amends for their previous treatment of Jim, still own slaves. Miss Watson, although she has done the right thing by freeing Jim, sullies her good intentions by making the action a provision of her will, something to be carried out in the future--at her death--rather than immediately. Aunt Sally smothers, Aunt Polly scolds, and everyone bumbles along. In the end, it is no wonder Huck wants to avoid further "sivilizing." Possibly the most troubling aspect of the novel's close is the realization that all has been for naught. Jim has, technically, been a free man almost the entire time. All of Huck's moral crises, all the lies he has told, all the societal conventions he has broken, have been part of a great game. In a way, the knowledge of Jim's emancipation erases the novel that has come before it. Ultimately, we are left questioning the meaning of what we have read: perhaps Twain means the novel as a reminder that life is ultimately a matter of imperfect information and ambiguous situations, and that the best one can do is to follow one's head and heart. Perhaps Twain, finishing this novel twenty years after the Civil War concluded and slaves were freed, means also to say that black Americans may be free in a technical sense, but that they remain chained by a society that refuses to acknowledge their rightful and equal standing as individuals. In a sense, perhaps Tom's mistreatment of Jim is actually a boon, for it leads the other characters in the novel to acknowledge Jim as a worthy human being. In the end, Huckleberry Finn moves beyond questions of slavery, to broader questions of morality and race. Unfortunately, these questions seldom have straightforward answers, and thus the ending of the novel contains as many new problems as solutions.


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

"Who is your folks?" he says.

"The Phelpses, down yonder."

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

"How'd you say he got shot?"

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

"Singular dream," he says.

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

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

"What three?"

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

"Oh," he says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, it does beat--"

"Laws alive, I never--"

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

"_House_-thieves as well as--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leaving Jim and Tom on the island with the raft, Huck finds a doctor and sends him to Tom in the canoe, which only holds one person. The next morning, Huck runs into Silas, who takes him home. The place is filled with farmers and their wives, all discussing the bizarre contents of Jim's shed and the hole. They conclude that a band of robbers of amazing skill must have tricked not only the Phelpses and their friends but also the original desperadoes who sent the letter. Sally refuses to let Huck out to find Tom , since she is so sad to have lost Sid and does not want to risk another boy. Huck, touched by her concern, vows never to hurt her again


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

"Did I give you the letter?"

"What letter?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somebody says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's all right," I says.

"And _Jim?_"

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

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

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

"About what, Sid?"

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

"What whole thing?"

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

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

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

"Mercy sakes!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom looks at me very grave, and says:

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

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

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

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

"What _does_ the child mean?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I done it. But not feeling brash.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You, Tom!"

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

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

"What letters?"

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

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

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

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

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

Tom does not return, and Silas's efforts to find him end in vain. In the meantime, a letter arrives from Aunt Polly, Sally's sister. Sally casts the letter aside when she sees Tom, who she thinks is Sid. The boy is brought in semi-conscious on a mattress, accompanied by a crowd including Jim, in chains, and the doctor. Some of the local men would like to hang Jim but are unwilling to risk having to compensate Jim's master. They treat Jim roughly and chain him hand and foot inside the shed. The doctor intervenes, telling the crowd how Jim has sacrificed his freedom to help nurse Tom. Sally, meanwhile, stays at Tom's bedside, glad that his condition has improved. Tom wakes and gleefully details how they set Jim free. Horrified to learn that Jim is now in chains, Tom explains that Miss Watson died two months ago and that her will stipulated that Jim should be set free. The old woman regretted ever having considered selling Jim down the river. Just then, Aunt Polly walks into the room. She has come to Arkansas from St. Petersburg after receiving a letter from Sally mentioning that Sid Sawyer--Tom's alias--had arrived with "Tom"--who was actually Huck. Tom has been intercepting communications between the sisters, and Polly has been forced to appear in person to sort out the confusion. After a tearful reunion with Sally, she identifies Tom and Huck and yells at both boys for their misadventures


The first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea,
time of the evasion?--what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion
worked all right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already
free before? And he said, what he had planned in his head from the
start, if we got Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the
river on the raft, and have adventures plumb to the mouth of the
river, and then tell him about his being free, and take him back up
home on a steamboat, in style, and pay him for his lost time, and
write word ahead and get out all the niggers around, and have them
waltz him into town with a torchlight procession and a brass-band, and
then he would be a hero, and so would we. But I reckoned it was about
as well the way it was.

We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle
Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse
Tom, they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and
give him all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And
we had him up to the sick-room, and had a high talk; and Tom give Jim
forty dollars for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so
good, and Jim was pleased most to death and busted out, and says:

"_Dah_, now, Huck, what I tell you?--what I tell you up dah on Jackson
Islan'? I tole you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en I
_tole_ you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich _ag'in;_ en it's
come true; en heah she _is! Dah_, now! doan' talk to _me_--signs is
_signs_, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter
be rich ag'in as I's a-stannin' heah dis minute!"

And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le's all
three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go
for howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the territory, for
a couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I
ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get
none from home, because it's likely pap's been back before now, and
got it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up.

"No, he hain't," Tom says; "it's all there yet--six thousand dollars
and more; and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come
away, anyhow."

Jim says, kind of solemn:

"He ain't a-comin' back no mo', Huck."

I says:

"Why, Jim?"

"Nemmine why, Huck--but he ain't comin' back no mo'."

But I kept at him; so at last he says:

"Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz
a man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let
you come in? Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase
dat wuz him."

Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a
watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so
there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it,
because if I'd 'a' knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I
wouldn't 'a' tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more. But I reckon I
got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt
Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I
been there before.

But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before. When Huck asks Tom what he had planned to do once he had freed the already-freed Jim, Tom replies that he was planning to repay Jim for his troubles and send him back a hero, giving him a reception complete with a marching band. When Aunt Polly and the Phelpses hear about the assistance Jim gave the doctor in nursing Tom, they immediately unchain him, feed him, and treat him like a king. Tom gives Jim forty dollars for his troubles, and Jim declares that the omen of his hairy chest--which was supposed to bring him fortune--has come true. Tom makes a full recovery and wears the bullet from his leg on a watch-guard around his neck. He and Huck would like to go on another adventure, to "Indian Territory". Huck thinks it quite possible that Pap has taken all his money by now, but Jim says that could not have happened. Jim tells Huck that the dead body they found on the floating house during the flood was Pap. Huck now has nothing more to write about and is "rotten glad" about that, because writing a book turned out to be quite a task. He does not plan any future writings. Instead, he plans to head out west immediately because Aunt Sally is already trying to "sivilize" him. Huck has had quite enough of that