the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 4 | study guide | cliffsnotes

Well, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter
now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read
and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to
six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get
any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock
in mathematics, anyway.

At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it.
Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got
next day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to
school the easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the
widow's ways, too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house
and sleeping in a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the
cold weather I used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and
so that was a rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting
so I liked the new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was
coming along slow but sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she
warn't ashamed of me.

One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. I
reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left
shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of
me, and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry;
what a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for
me, but that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well
enough. I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and
wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to
be. There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't
one of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked
along low-spirited and on the watch-out.

I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go
through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the
ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry
and stood around the stile awhile, and then went on around the garden
fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I
couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to
follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I
didn't notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in
the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil.

I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my
shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge
Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said:

"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your
interest?"

"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?"

"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fifty
dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it
along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it."

"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at
all--nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to
give it to you--the six thousand and all."

He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says:

"Why, what can you mean, my boy?"

I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take
it--won't you?"

He says:

"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?"

"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing--then I won't have
to tell no lies."

He studied awhile, and then he says:

"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to _sell_ all your property to me--not
give it. That's the correct idea."

Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says:

"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have
bought it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you
sign it."

So I signed it, and left.

Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which
had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do
magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed
everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here
again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was,
what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his
hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and
dropped it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about
an inch. Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just
the same. Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and
listened. But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said
sometimes it wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old
slick counterfeit quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed
through the silver a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the
brass didn't show, because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that
would tell on it every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about
the dollar I got from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but
maybe the hair-ball would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the
difference. Jim smelt it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would
manage so the hair-ball would think it was good. He said he would
split open a raw Irish potato and stick the quarter in between and
keep it there all night, and next morning you couldn't see no brass,
and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, and so anybody in town would take
it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. Well, I knowed a potato would
do that before, but I had forgot it.

Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened
again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it would
tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the
hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says:

"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he
spec he'll go 'way, en den ag'in he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to
res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels
hoverin' roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one
is black. De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de
black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one
gwyne to fetch him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have
considable trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne
to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's
gwyne to git well ag'in. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life.
One uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is
po'. You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You
wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no
resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung."

When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat
pap--his own self!

Three or four months have passed when Huck finds a suspicious footprint in the snow outside of the widow's house. Because of a cross carved in the heel, the print looks exactly like Pap Finn's boot, and Huck begins to worry that Pap has returned. To protect the reward money from Pap, Huck goes to see Judge Thatcher and tries to persuade Judge Thatcher to take the money for his own. Because Jim is rumored to have the ability to do magic, Huck asks him if he can predict what Pap will do and where he will stay. When Huck asks Jim about Pap's plans, Jim places a hairball on the ground and listens for Huck's fortune. Jim says that there are two angels hovering over Pap -- one white and one black -- and he does not know which way Pap will decide to live his life. Jim also says that, just like Pap Finn, Huck has two angels over him, trying to help him decide the right path. When Huck returns to his room that night, he finds Pap waiting for him.

When Pap's tracks appear, Huck would rather give his money away than risk confronting Pap. He knows that Pap is inspired only by whisky or greed, and if Huck is poor, perhaps Pap will leave him alone. In the previous chapter, Pap is described as a town vagrant who "used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard" and Huck is not affected by the description. But Huck's indifference to Pap's reputation changes when he realizes Pap is back in town. Huck's fear is understated, but it suggests that his previous life with Pap was violent and dysfunctional. Moreover, the subtle threat of abuse underscores the theme of a chaotic and violent environment after the Civil War, an environment that Huck cannot entirely avoid despite his plans and cunning. Chapter 4 continues to document that Huck and Jim are superstitious and are products of their society and their circumstances. When Jim uses the hairball to discover Pap's intentions, Jim ends up forecasting Huck's future more than Pap's, and the similarities between the two are obvious. According to Jim, both Pap and Huck have "two angels hoverin'" over them, and the future is uncertain. Jim warns Huck to stay away from the water because it is his fate to be hanged. The darkness in Huck's future, then, relates directly to the Mississippi River, and it is predestined  that Huck will suffer because of it. The inclusion of predestination reflects Twain's Calvinist background. More important, however, the battle of the two angels foreshadows Huck's future battle with his conscience in terms of Jim's freedom. Glossary irish potato the common white potato; so called because extensively cultivated in Ireland. down in de bills predestined, foreordained by divine decree or intent.

Over the next few months, Huck begins to adjust to his new life and even makes some progress in school. One winter morning, he notices boot tracks in the snow near the house. Within one heel print is the shape of two nails crossed to ward off the devil. Huck immediately recognizes this mark and runs to Judge Thatcher. Huck sells his fortune to the befuddled Judge for a dollar. That night, Huck goes to Jim, who claims to possess a giant, magical hairball from an ox's stomach. Huck tells Jim that he has found Pap's tracks in the snow and wants to know what his father wants. Jim says that the hairball needs money to talk, so Huck gives Jim a counterfeit quarter. Jim puts his ear to the hairball and relates that Huck's father has two angels, one black and one white, one bad and one good. It is uncertain which angel will win out, but Huck is safe for now. He will have much happiness and sorrow in his life, he will marry a poor woman and then a rich woman, and he should stay clear of the water, since that is where he will die. That night, Huck finds Pap waiting for him in his bedroom

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


the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 5-6 | study guide | cliffsnotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The widow. She told me."

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

"Nobody never told her."

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

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

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

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

"What's this?"

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

He tore it up, and says:

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

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

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

"They lie--that's how."

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

"I hain't got no money."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That evening, Huck discovers Pap in his room. After the initial shock, Huck decides Pap is too disheveled to be a threat. Pap's hair is "long and tangled and greasy," his face is extremely pale, and his clothes are in rags. Pap immediately notices how clean Huck is in comparison and then begins a tirade about Huck attending school and trying to be more of a man than his father. Over the next few days, Pap tries to get Huck's money from Judge Thatcher and gain custody of Huck. Pap is unable to get any money, except when he takes a dollar or two directly from Huck. Although the widow wants to raise Huck, Pap convinces a new judge that he has changed and will start a life free from alcohol and sin. The new judge decides that "he'd druther not take a child away from its father" and grants custody to Pap. The new judge finally realizes he has been taken for a fool, however, when Pap sneaks out and breaks his arm after getting "drunk as a fiddler." Instead of avoiding school, Huck attends just to spite Pap. When the widow tells Pap to stop loitering around her house, Pap kidnaps Huck and takes him upriver to the Illinois shore. The widow discovers Huck's location and sends a man to rescue him, but Pap drives the man off with a gun. After a couple of months, Pap's beatings become too harsh and too frequent, and Huck decides to escape. The same night as Huck's decision, Pap gets extremely drunk and begins to denounce the government for its laws and the positive treatment of African-Americans. Eventually both Pap and Huck fall asleep, and Huck wakes up to find Pap screaming about snakes and calling Huck the "Angel of Death."

Upon discovering Pap, Huck's first thoughts are of the beatings that Pap used to give him. When Huck sees Pap's appearance, however, he immediately is put at ease. Pap's disheveled appearance does not frighten Huck; instead, Pap appears as a clown or buffoon with exaggerated features. The appearance is similar to other exaggerated frontier characters in American humor, but Pap is more than a caricature; he is the most evil character in the novel, and he is white, "a white to make a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl." Pap's threats are humorous because of the obvious irony; how could a father not be proud of his son learning to read? But as in Chapter 4, the threats are laced with the realization that Huck has been beaten by Pap before. Huck stays captive for the next couple of months and begins to enjoy his old life, free from manners, education, and religion. Huck's "free" life with Pap, however, comes at the price of physical abuse. Pap's miserable character represents yet another negative element of society. Pap exudes bigotry and hate. His ludicrous tirade against the government and blacks is pathetically comical because of his obvious arrogance and ignorance and the slapstick humor involved in Huck's description. The irony, however, is more painful than it is humorous because it symbolizes a common racist attitude built on ignorance and insecurity. When Pap calls Huck the Angel of Death at the end of Chapter 6, the name appears to be one of Pap's hallucinations. The label is important, however, and foreshadows the numerous deaths that Huck encounters as he escapes down the Mississippi. Glossary black slouch a felt hat with a broad, floppy rim. put in her shovel offered an opinion. pungle to pay. bullyragged scolded, chastised. forty-rod cheap whisky. tow a rope made from strands of broken or coarse flax or hemp. mulatter mulatto, a person who has one black parent and one white parent. habob aristocratic member of the community. delirium tremens involuntary muscle spasm usually associate with drinking alcohol and characterized by sweating, anxiety, and hallucinations.


the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 7 | study guide | cliffsnotes

"Git up! What you 'bout?"

I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It
was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over
me looking sour--and sick, too. He says:

"What you doin' with this gun?"

I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I
says:

"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him."

"Why didn't you roust me out?"

"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you."

"Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with
you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be
along in a minute."

He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed
some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling
of bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would
have great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to
be always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes
cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts--sometimes a dozen
logs together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to
the woodyards and the sawmill.

I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out
for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a
canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long,
riding high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a
frog, clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just
expected there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often
done that to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most
to it they'd raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It
was a drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.
Thinks I, the old man will be glad when he sees this--she's worth ten
dollars. But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I was
running her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines
and willows, I struck another idea: I judged I'd hide her good, and
then, 'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the
river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have
such a rough time tramping on foot.

It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man
coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked
around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a
piece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen
anything.

When he got along I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He abused
me a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and
that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and
then he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines
and went home.

While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about
wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep
pap and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer
thing than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed
me; you see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no
way for a while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another
barrel of water, and he says:

"Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you
hear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you
roust me out, you hear?"

Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; what he had been saying
give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it now so
nobody won't think of following me.

About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The
river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the
rise. By and by along comes part of a log raft--nine logs fast
together. We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had
dinner. Anybody but pap would 'a' waited and seen the day through, so
as to catch more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs was
enough for one time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he
locked me in and took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about
half past three. I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited
till I reckoned he had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and
went to work on that log again. Before he was t'other side of the
river I was out of the hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the
water away off yonder.

[Illustration: HUCKLEBERRY FINN]

I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid,
and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the
same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the
coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the
wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; took a dipper and a tin cup, and
my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I
took fish-lines and matches and other things--everything that was
worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an ax, but there
wasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was
going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done.

I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and
dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from
the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the
smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into
its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it
there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground.
If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you
wouldn't never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin,
and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there.

It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I
followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the
river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods,
and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon
went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the
prairie-farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp.

I took the ax and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it
considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back
nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the ax, and laid
him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was
ground--hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and
put a lot of big rocks in it--all I could drag--and I started it from
the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the
river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy
see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom
Sawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of
business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himself
like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that.

Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the ax good, and
stuck it on the back side, and slung the ax in the corner. Then I took
up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't
drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into
the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag
of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the
house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in
the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on
the place--pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking.
Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and
through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five
mile wide and full of rushes--and ducks too, you might say, in the
season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other
side that went miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the
river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the
lake. I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had
been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal-sack with a
string, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the
canoe again.

It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under
some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise.
I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid
down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to
myself, they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore
and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to
the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find
the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt
the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of
that, and won't bother no more about me. All right; I can stop
anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know
that island pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can
paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I
want. Jackson's Island's the place.

I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I
woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked
around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and
miles across. The moon was so bright I could 'a' counted the
drift-logs that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of
yards out from shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late,
and _smelt_ late. You know what I mean--I don't know the words to put
it in.

I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and
start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty
soon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that
comes from oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peeped
out through the willow branches, and there it was--a skiff, away
across the water. I couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept
a-coming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man
in it. Thinks I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He
dropped below me with the current, and by and by he came a-swinging up
shore in the easy water, and he went by so close I could 'a' reached
out the gun and touched him. Well, it _was_ pap, sure enough--and
sober, too, by the way he laid his oars.

I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down-stream
soft, but quick, in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half,
and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more toward the middle of
the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry-landing,
and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood,
and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. I
laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking
away into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when
you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before.
And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people
talking at the ferry-landing. I heard what they said, too--every word
of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short
nights now. T'other one said _this_ warn't one of the short ones, he
reckoned--and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they
laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and
laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and said
let him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his old
woman--she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn't
nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it
was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more
than about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further
away, and I couldn't make out the words any more; but I could hear the
mumble, and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off.

I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's
Island, about two mile and a half down-stream, heavy-timbered and
standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid,
like a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar
at the head--it was all under water now.

It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping
rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and
landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into a
deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow
branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could 'a' seen the
canoe from the outside.

I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked
out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the
town, three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling.
A monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile upstream, coming along
down, with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping
down, and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say,
"Stern oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as
plain as if the man was by my side.

There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods,
and laid down for a nap before breakfast.

The next day Huck finds a drifting canoe on the rising river. When Pap leaves for the night to go drinking, Huck escapes through a hole he sawed in the cabin wall. He takes all the cabin's supplies and puts them in the canoe; he then shoots a wild hog and uses its blood to make it look as if he were murdered. By staging his own murder, Huck thinks he can escape without the threat of being followed. At dark, he leaves in the canoe and eventually lands downstream at Jackson's Island.

Twain gives the readers another literary glimpse of the river that enchanted him throughout his life and career. The quiet Mississippi quickly lulls Huck to sleep. The river becomes symbolic of Huck's more peaceful, natural life. The description is important, because it underscores the serenity of the river and of nature in general as opposed to thc harsh and chaotic world on shore. Throughout the novel, Twain continues to outline the difference between the two worlds, and the juxtaposition of the peaceful river and brutal shore has often been described as the "raft/shore dichotomy." Huck's flight shows his creativity and cleverness, but it also establishes a logical method of escape. Every action Huck performs, from placing blood on an axe to dragging a bag full of meal, is practical and works to help his plan. The escape is efficient, and although Huck wishes Tom were there to "throw in the fancy touches," readers realize that Tom's additions would create more problems than solutions. Huck's practicality is evident not only in his narrative reaction to events but also in his physical actions. The self-reliant characteristic aids Huck well in the future, as he faces decisions that require individual thought and rejection of accepted beliefs. Glossary palavering talking or idly chattering. trot line a strong fishing line suspended ove the water, with short, baited lines hung at intervals. slough a place, as a hollow, full of soft, deep mud; a swamp, bog, or marsh, especially one that is part of an inlet or backwater. stabbord starboard, the right side of a ship or boat or boat as one faces forward.

Unaware of his earlier drunken rage, Pap wakes up and sends Huck out to check to see if any fish have been caught on the lines out in the river. Huck finds a canoe drifting in the river and hides it in the woods. When Pap leaves for the day, Huck finishes sawing his way out of the cabin. He puts food, cookware, and everything else of value from the cabin into the canoe. He then covers up the hole he cut in the wall and shoots a wild pig outside. Huck smashes the cabin door with an ax, cuts the pig's throat so it bleeds onto the cabin's dirt floor, and makes other preparations to make it seem as if robbers have broken into the cabin and killed him. Huck goes to the canoe and waits for the moon to rise, planning to paddle to Jackson's Island out in the river. Huck falls asleep and wakes to see Pap rowing by. Once Pap has passed, Huck quietly sets out downriver. He pulls into Jackson's Island, careful not to be seen

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


the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 8 | study guide | cliffsnotes

The sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight
o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about
things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I
could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees
all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places
on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the
freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little
breeze up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at
me very friendly.

I was powerful lazy and comfortable--didn't want to get up and cook
breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep
sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow
and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and
looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying
on the water a long ways up--about abreast the ferry. And there was
the ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was
the matter now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the
ferryboat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water,
trying to make my carcass come to the top.

I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire,
because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the
cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide
there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning--so I was having
a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a
bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put
quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off, because they always
go right to the drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep
a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me I'll give
them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what
luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come
along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and
she floated out further. Of course I was where the current set in the
closest to the shore--I knowed enough for that. But by and by along
comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook
out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was
"baker's bread"--what the quality eat; none of your low-down
corn-pone.

I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log,
munching the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well
satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the
widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me,
and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is
something in that thing--that is, there's something in it when a body
like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I
reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.

I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The
ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a
chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would
come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along
down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the
bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place.
Where the log forked I could peep through.

By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could
'a' run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat.
Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Joe Harper, and Tom
Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more.
Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and
says:

"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's
washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I
hope so, anyway."

I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails,
nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I
could see them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain
sung out: "Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right
before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind
with the smoke, and I judged I was gone. If they'd 'a' had some
bullets in, I reckon they'd 'a' got the corpse they was after. Well, I
see I warn't hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went
out of sight around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the
booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an
hour, I didn't hear it no more. The island was three mile long. I
judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up. But they didn't
yet awhile. They turned around the foot of the island and started up
the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a
while as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When
they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped
over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town.

I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after
me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the
thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my
things under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and
haggled him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my
camp-fire and had supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for
breakfast.

When it was dark I set by my camp-fire smoking, and feeling pretty
well satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went
and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and
counted the stars and drift-logs and rafts that come down, and then
went to bed; there ain't no better way to put in time when you are
lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it.

And so for three days and nights. No difference--just the same thing.
But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I
was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know
all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty
strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green
razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show.
They would all come handy by and by, I judged.

Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't
far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot
nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh
home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and
it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it,
trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I
bounded right on to the ashes of a camp-fire that was still smoking.

My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look
further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as
fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst
the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't
hear nothing else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened
again; and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if
I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut
one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too.

When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand
in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I
got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight,
and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an
old last-year's camp, and then clumb a tree.

I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I
didn't hear nothing--I only _thought_ I heard and seen as much as a
thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I
got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the
time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from
breakfast.

By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and
dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the
Illinois bank--about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and
cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there
all night when I hear a _plunkety-plunk_, _plunkety-plunk_, and says
to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got
everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping
through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when
I hear a man say:

"We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about
beat out. Let's look around."

I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the
old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe.

I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time
I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't
do me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm
a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me; I'll
find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off.

So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and
then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was
shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I
poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound
asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island.
A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as
saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and
brung her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into
the edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out
through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness
begin to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak
over the treetops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and
slipped off towards where I had run across that camp-fire, stopping
every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck somehow; I
couldn't seem to find the place. But by and by, sure enough, I catched
a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and
slow. By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a
man on the ground. It most give me the fantods.  He had a blanket
around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there
behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on
him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped
and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss
Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says:

"Hello, Jim!" and skipped out.

He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees,
and puts his hands together and says:

"Doan' hurt me--don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz
liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de
river ag'in, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz
alwuz yo' fren'."

Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so
glad to see Jim. I warn't lonesome now. I told him I warn't afraid of
_him_ telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only set
there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says:

"It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast. Make up your camp-fire good."

"What's de use er makin' up de camp-fire to cook strawbries en sich
truck? But you got a gun, hain't you? Den we kin git sumfn better den
strawbries."

"Strawberries and such truck," I says. "Is that what you live on?"

"I couldn' git nuffn else," he says.

"Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?"

"I come heah de night arter you's killed."

"What, all that time?"

"Yes-indeedy."

"And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?"

"No, sah--nuffn  else."

"Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?"

"I reck'n I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de
islan'?"

"Since the night I got killed."

"No! W'y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got a
gun. Dat's good. Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire."

So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in a
grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and
coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the
nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done
with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned
him with his knife, and fried him.

When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking
hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved.
Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied.

By and by Jim says:

"But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it
warn't you?"

Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom
Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says:

"How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?"

He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he
says:

"Maybe I better not tell."

"Why, Jim?"

"Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I 'uz to tell you,
would you, Huck?"

"Blamed if I would, Jim."

"Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I--I _run off_."

"Jim!"

"But mind, you said you wouldn' tell--you know you said you wouldn'
tell, Huck."

"Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest _injun_,
I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me
for keeping mum--but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to
tell, and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all
about it."

"Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole missus--dat's Miss Watson--she
pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said
she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger
trader roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy.
Well, one night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite
shet, en I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to
Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars
for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'. De
widder she try to git her to say she wouldn't do it, but I never
waited to hear de res'. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.

"I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de
sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I
hid in de ole tumbledown cooper shop on de bank to wait for everybody
to go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de
time. 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout
eight er nine every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap
come over to de town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz full o'
ladies en genlmen a-goin' over for to see de place. Sometimes dey'd
pull up at de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de
talk I got to know all 'bout de killin'. I 'uz powerful sorry you's
killed, Huck, but I ain't no mo' now.

"I laid dah under de shavin's all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't
afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to
de camp-meet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows
I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see
me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de
evenin'. De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en
take holiday soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way.

"Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout
two mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine
'bout what I's a-gwyne to do. You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away
afoot, de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd
miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de
yuther side, en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what
I's arter; it doan' _make_ no track.

"I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove'
a log ahead o' me en swum more'n half-way acrost de river, en got in
'mongst de drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin
de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en
tuck a-holt. It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while. So I
clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de
middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a-risin', en dey wuz a good
current; so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd be twenty-five
mile down de river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo' daylight en swim
asho', en take to de woods on de Illinois side.

"But I didn' have no luck. When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de
islan' a man begin to come aft wid de lantern. I see it warn't no use
fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan'. Well, I
had a notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but I couldn't--bank too
bluff. I uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I foun' a good place. I
went into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as
dey move de lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg en
some matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right."

"And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why
didn't you get mud-turkles?"

"How you gwyne to git 'm?  You can't slip up on um en grab um; en
how's a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de
night? En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime."

"Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of
course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon?"

"Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah--watched um
thoo de bushes."

Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and
lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was
a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was
the same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of
them, but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his
father laid mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his
old granny said his father would die, and he did.

And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for
dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the
tablecloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive and
that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next
morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die.
Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that,
because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting
me.

I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them.
Jim knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I
said it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I
asked him if there warn't any good-luck signs. He says:

"Mighty few--an' _dey_ ain't no use to a body. What you want to know
when good luck's a-comin' for? Want to keep it off?" And he said: "Ef
you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's a-gwyne
to be rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat, 'kase it's so fur
ahead. You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust, en so you
might git discourage' en kill yo'sef 'f you didn' know by de sign dat
you gwyne to be rich bymeby."

"Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?"

"What's de use to ax dat question? Don't you see I has?"

"Well, are you rich?"

"No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich ag'in. Wunst I had
foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out."

"What did you speculate in, Jim?"

"Well, fust I tackled stock."

"What kind of stock?"

"Why, live stock--cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But I
ain' gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock. De cow up 'n' died on my
han's."

"So you lost the ten dollars."

"No, I didn't lose it all. I on'y los' 'bout nine of it. I sole de
hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents."

"You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?"

"Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto
Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar
would git fo' dollars mo' at de en' er de year. Well, all de niggers
went in, but dey didn't have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So
I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd
start a bank mysef. Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er
de business, bekase he says dey warn't business 'nough for two banks,
so he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at
de en' er de year.

"So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty-five dollars right
off en keep things a-movin'. Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had
ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn' know it; en I bought it
off'n him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er de
year come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex' day de
one-laigged nigger say de bank's busted. So dey didn' none uv us git
no money."

"What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?"

"Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me
to give it to a nigger name' Balum--Balum's Ass dey call him for
short; he's one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he's lucky, dey
say, en I see I warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten
cents en he'd make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en
when he wuz in church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de
po' len' to de Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd times. So
Balum he tuck en give de ten cents to de po', en laid low to see what
wuz gwyne to come of it."

"Well, what did come of it, Jim?"

"Nuffn never come of it. I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way;
en Balum he couldn'. I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de
security. Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher
says! Ef I could git de ten _cents_ back, I'd call it squah, en be
glad er de chanst."

"Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich
again some time or other."

"Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth
eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'."

Huck wakes up on Jackson's Island to hear a ferryboat firing a cannon. He knows that this will bring a drowned body to the surface and realizes that they must be searching for him. Huck also remembers that another way to find a body is with a loaf of bread filled with quicksilver. He scouts the shoreline and finds a large loaf, then wonders if prayer really works. Someone, after all, had prayed that the bread find his body, and that prayer had worked. Confident that he is now safe, Huck explores the island until he stumbles upon fresh campfire ashes. Huck climbs a tree for safety but curiosity sends him back to the site, and he discovers Miss Watson's slave, Jim. After convincing Jim that he is not a ghost, Huck learns that Jim has run away because Miss Watson was going to sell him down the river to New Orleans. During the evening, Jim impresses Huck with his knowledge of superstition.

Huck's contemplation of prayer brims with humor as he tries to fathom the logic of how the quicksilver bread found him. The combination of a superstitious practice  and a religious custom  shows that Huck's beliefs include a portion of both. As reluctant as he is to embrace Miss Watson's religion, he still holds a fearful respect of its power. The same is true for the practice of superstition. When Huck first stumbles upon Jim, he does not immediately ask why Jim is on the island, nor does he worry that Jim will tell anyone he is alive. Instead, Huck's first reaction is one of joy at the companionship. More important, Jim's reintroduction extends the important theme of freedom and civilization from Huck to Jim, and sets up the circumstances that will lead to their odyssey down the Mississippi. Huck's continued struggle with society's restrictions and laws now includes the more serious issue of race and slavery. Huck's comment that "people would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum" shows that his society does not tolerate those who denounce slavery. This is Huck's first important break with society, but a break that would make his return nearly impossible, as he realizes. The stance is similar to Twain's own boyhood experience where slavery was an accepted practice in the South. Although Huck has shown the tendency to reject society's beliefs, he cannot immediately dismiss its influence and teachings. This chapter also serves to establish the relationship between Huck and Jim and their roles in contrast to one another. Whereas Huck's initial representation of Jim was stereotypical, in this chapter, Jim quickly reveals himself as an authority on superstition. Huck's literal nature does not allow him to be impressed easily, but his belief in signs and superstition elevates Jim, who "knowed all kinds." In addition, Twain was fond of using a twin image in order to develop his themes. In some works the image is obvious . In others, the image is more subtle. In this work, Tom and Huck are twins with differing dominate personality characteristics: Tom, the romantic, and Huck, the realist. Likewise, Jim and Huck are twin-like, each searching for his own kind of freedom, but one black, the other white. Glossary corn-pone corn meal. sand in my craw courage. fan-tods the nervous fidgets. plug er dog-leg a plug of cheap chewing tobacco. taller tallow, the nearly colorless solid fat extracted from the natural fat of cattle or sheep, used in making candles and soaps.

The next morning, a ferryboat passes Jackson Island, carrying Pap, Judge Thatcher and his daughter Bessie , Tom Sawyer, Tom's aunt Polly, some of Huck's young friends, and "plenty more" on board, all discussing Huck's apparent murder. They shoot cannonballs over the water and float loaves of bread with mercury inside, in hopes of finding Huck's corpse. Huck, still hiding carefully, catches one of the loaves and eats it. He is pleased that they are using such high-quality bread to search for him, but he feels guilty that his disappearance has upset the Widow Douglas and the others who care about him. Huck spends three peaceful, lonely days on the island, living on plentiful berries and fish and able to smoke whenever he wishes. He spends his nights counting ferryboats and stars on the tranquil river. On the fourth day, while exploring the island, Huck is delighted to find Jim, who at first thinks Huck is a ghost. Huck is pleased that he will not be alone on the island but shocked when Jim explains that he has run away. Jim says that he overheard Miss Watson discussing selling him for $800 to a slave trader who would take him to New Orleans, separating him from his family. Jim left before Miss Watson had a chance to decide whether or not to sell him. Jim and Huck discuss superstitions--in which Jim is well-versed--and Jim's failed investments, most of which have been scams. Jim is not too disappointed by his failures, since he still has his hairy arms and chest, which, according to his superstitions, are a sign of future wealth