When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and
sunshiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of
faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so
lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans
along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you
feel like it's spirits whispering--spirits that's been dead ever so
many years--and you always think they're talking about _you._ As a
general thing it makes a body wish _he_ was dead, too, and done with
it all.

Phelps's was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and
they all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made
out of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a
different length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to
stand on when they are going to jump onto a horse; some sickly
grass-patches in the big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like
an old hat with the nap rubbed off; big double log house for the white
folks--hewed logs, with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and
these mud-stripes been whitewashed some time or another; round-log
kitchen, with a big broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the
house; log smokehouse back of the kitchen; three little  nigger cabins
in a row t'other side the smokehouse; one little hut all by itself
away down against the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece
the other side; ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the
little hut; bench by the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a
gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more hounds asleep round about;
about three shade trees away off in a corner; some currant bushes and
gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a
garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton-fields begins, and
after the fields the woods.

I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and
started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum
of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and
then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that _is_ the
lonesomest sound in the whole world.

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just
trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the
time come; for I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right
words in my mouth if I left it alone.

When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went
for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And
such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a
kind of a hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out of
dogs--circle of fifteen of them packed together around me, with their
necks and noses stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and
more a-coming; you could see them sailing over fences and around
corners from every-wheres.

A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in
her hand, singing out, "Begone! _you_ Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and
she fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them
howling, and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them
come back, wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me.
There ain't no harm in a hound, nohow.

And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger
boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to
their mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful,
the way they always do. And here comes the white woman running from
the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her
spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white
children, acting the same way the little niggers was going. She was
smiling all over so she could hardly stand--and says:

"It's _you_, at last!--_ain't_ it?"

I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought.

She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands
and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down
over; and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying,
"You don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but
law sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear,
it does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin
Tom!--tell him howdy."

But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths,
and hid behind her. So she run on:

"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away--or did you get
your breakfast on the boat?"

I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house,
leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got
there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down
on a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and
says:

"Now I can have a _good_ look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry
for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come
at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep'
you?--boat get aground?"

"Yes'm--she--"

"Don't say yes'm--say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?"

I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the
boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on
instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up--from down
towards Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know
the names of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or
forget the name of the one we got aground on--or--Now I struck an
idea, and fetched it out:

"It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep us back but a little. We
blowed out a cylinder-head."

"Good gracious! anybody hurt?"

"No'm. Killed a nigger."

"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago
last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the
old Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.
And I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas
knowed a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes,
I remember now, he _did_ die. Mortification set in, and they had to
amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification--that
was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious
resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up
to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an
hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must 'a' met him on the
road, didn't you?--oldish man, with a--"

"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at
daylight, and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking
around the town and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and
not get here too soon; and so I come down the back way."

"Who'd you give the baggage to?"

"Nobody."

"Why, child, it 'll be stole!"

"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says.

"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?"

It was kinder thin ice, but I says:

"The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have
something to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to
the officers' lunch, and give me all I wanted."

I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the
children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump
them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show,
Mrs. Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold
chills streak all down my back, because she says:

"But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word
about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you
start up yourn; just tell me _everything_--tell me all about 'm
all--every one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and
what they told you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of."

Well, I see I was up a stump--and up it good. Providence had stood by
me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it
warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead--I'd got to throw up my hand.
So I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the
truth. I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me
in behind the bed, and says:

"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; you
can't be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on
him. Children, don't you say a word."

I see I was in a _fix_ now. But it warn't no use to worry; there
warn't nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to
stand from under when the lightning struck.

I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in;
then the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says: "Has he
come?"

"No," says her husband.

"Good-_ness_ gracious!" she says, "what in the world _can_ have become
of him?"

"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes me
dreadful uneasy."

"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go distracted! He _must_ 'a' come;
and you've missed him along the road. I _know_ it's so--something
tells me so."

"Why, Sally, I _couldn't_ miss him along the road--_you_ know that."

"But oh, dear, dear, what _will_ Sis say! He must 'a' come! You must
'a' missed him. He--"

"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know
what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind
acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's
come; for he _couldn't_ come and me miss him. Sally, it's
terrible--just terrible--something's happened to the boat, sure!"

"Why, Silas! Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that somebody coming?"

He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give
Mrs. Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot
of the bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back
from the window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house
afire, and I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old
gentleman stared, and says:

"Why, who's that?"

"Who do you reckon 'tis?"

"I hain't no idea. Who _is_ it?"

"It's _Tom Sawyer!_"

By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time
to swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept
on shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh
and cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and
Mary, and the rest of the tribe.

But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was
like being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they
froze to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it
couldn't hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--I
mean the Sawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families.
And I explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the
mouth of White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was
all right, and worked first-rate; because _they_ didn't know but what
it would take three days to fix it. If I'd 'a' called it a bolthead it
would 'a' done just as well.

Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty
uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and
comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear
a steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself,
s'pose Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat?  And s'pose he steps in
here any minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink
to keep quiet?

Well, I couldn't _have_ it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must go
up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go
up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for
going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself,
and I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me.

With only trust in providence to help him free his friend, Huck finds the Phelps's house, where Jim is supposedly being held. A pack of hounds threatens Huck, but a slave woman calls them off. The white mistress of the house, Sally, comes outside, delighted to see Huck because she is certain he is her nephew, Tom. Sally asks why he has been delayed the last several days. Taking the opportunity to conceal his identity by pretending to be her nephew, Huck explains that a cylinder head on the steamboat blew out. When Sally asks whether anyone was hurt in the explosion, Huck says no, a "nigger" was killed. Sally expresses relief that the explosion was so "lucky. Huck is not sure he will be able to keep up the charade as Tom. When Sally's husband, Silas, returns, however his enthusiastic greeting reveals to Huck that Sally and Silas are the aunt and uncle of none other than Tom Sawyer, Huck's best friend. Hearing a steamboat go up the river, Huck heads out to the docks, supposedly to get his luggage but really to inform Tom of the situation should he arrive

As in the early chapters of the novel, Tom Sawyer again serves as a foil to Huck in these chapters. Brash, unconcerned with others, and dependent on the "authorities" of romantic adventure novels, Tom hatches a wild plan to free Jim. Huck recognizes the foolishness and potential danger of Tom's plan and says it could get the three of them killed. It is not surprising that Tom's willingness to help free Jim confuses Huck, for Tom has always concerned himself with conforming to social expectations and preserving his own reputation. Freeing Jim would seem to be objectionable on both counts. Huck, meanwhile, though willing to trade his life and reputation for Jim, thinks of himself as a poor, worthless member of white society. Huck sees Tom's life as worth something more than that and believes that Tom has something to lose by helping to free Jim. In the end, though, we sense that Tom has no concept of the life-and-death importance of Jim's liberation but instead just views the effort simply as one big opportunity for fun and adventure. Twain makes a scathing comment on the insidious racism of the South in the exchange between Sally and Huck about the explosion on the steamboat. When Sally asks if anyone was hurt in the explosion, Huck replies "No'm. Killed a nigger," to which Sally replies, "Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt." It is unclear whether Huck is simply role-playing--mimicking the attitudes of an average white Southern boy in pretending to be Tom--or whether he still retains some vestiges of the racism with which he has been brought up. Sally, however, is inarguably racist in her response, saying that it's fortunate no one was hurt when she has just learned that a black man lost his life. Twain condemns this kind of automatic, offhand racism throughout the novel, but his criticism is at its most apparent here. This conversation provides yet another example of the confusing moral environment that surrounds Huck: Sally is clearly a "good" and kind woman in many traditional senses, yet she doesn't think twice about considering the loss of a black man's life no loss at all.


So I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a
wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and
waited till he come along. I says "Hold on!" and it stopped alongside,
and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed
two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then
says:

"I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you
want to come back and ha'nt _me_ for?"

I says:

"I hain't come back--I hain't been _gone_."

When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite
satisfied yet. He says:

"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest
injun, you ain't a ghost?"

"Honest injun, I ain't," I says.

"Well--I--I--well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't
somehow seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever
murdered _at all?_"

"No. I warn't ever murdered at all--I played it on them. You come in
here and feel of me if you don't believe me."

So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me
again he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it
right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it
hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and
told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told
him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do?
He said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought
and thought, and pretty soon he says:

"It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on
it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to
the house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a
piece, and take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an
hour after you; and you needn't let on to know me at first."

I says:

"All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing--a thing that
_nobody_ don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that
I'm a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is _Jim_--old Miss
Watson's Jim."

He says:

"What! Why, Jim is--"

He stopped and went to studying. I says:

"_I_ know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-down business;
but what if it is? _I_'m low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I
want you keep mum and not let on. Will you?"

His eye lit up, and he says:

"I'll _help_ you steal him!"

Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most
astonishing speech I ever heard--and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell
considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer
a _nigger-stealer!_

"Oh, shucks!" I says; "you're joking."

"I ain't joking, either."

"Well, then," I says, "joking or no joking, if you hear anything said
about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that _you_ don't know
nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him."

Then he took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his
way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on
accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too
quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door,
and he says:

"Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would 'a' thought it was in that mare
to do it? I wish we'd 'a' timed her. And she hain't sweated a
hair--not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred
dollars for that horse now--I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd 'a' sold
her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth."

That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see.
But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was
a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of
the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a
church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching,
and it was worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like
that, and done the same way, down South.

In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and
Aunt Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about
fifty yards, and says:

"Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's
a stranger. Jimmy" (that's one of the children), "run and tell Lize to
put on another plate for dinner."

Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a
stranger don't come _every_ year, and so he lays over the
yaller-fever, for interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile
and starting for the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the
village, and we was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store
clothes on, and an audience--and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer.
In them circumstances it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an
amount of style that was suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up
that yard like a sheep; no, he come ca'm and important, like the ram.
When he got a-front of us he lifts his hat ever so gracious and
dainty, like it was the lid of a box that had butterflies asleep in it
and he didn't want to disturb them, and says:

"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?"

"No, my boy," says the old gentleman, "I'm sorry to say 't your driver
has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more.
Come in, come in."

Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, "Too late--he's
out of sight."

"Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with
us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's."

"Oh, I _can't_ make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll
walk--I don't mind the distance."

"But we won't _let_ you walk--it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to
do it. Come right in."

"Oh, _do_,"' says Aunt Sally; "it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a
bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and we
can't let you walk. And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on
another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us.
Come right in and make yourself at home."

So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be
persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger
from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson--and he made
another bow.

Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and
everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and
wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last,
still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on
the mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and
was going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back
of her hand, and says:

"You owdacious puppy!"

He looked kind of hurt, and says:

"I'm surprised at you, m'am."

"You're s'rp--Why, what do you reckon _I_ am? I've a good notion to
take and--Say, what do you mean by kissing me?"

He looked kind of humble, and says:

"I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I--I--thought
you'd like it."

"Why, you born fool!" She took up the spinning-stick, and it looked
like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it.
"What made you think I'd like it?"

"Well, I don't know. Only, they--they--told me you would."

"_They_ told you I would. Whoever told you's _another_ lunatic. I
never heard the beat of it. Who's _they?_"

"Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am."

It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her
fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says:

"Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot
short."

He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says:

"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told
me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said
it--every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no
more--I won't, honest."

"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd _reckon_ you won't!"

"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again--till you ask
me."

"Till I _ask_ you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! I
lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever _I_ ask
you--or the likes of you."

"Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't make it out,
somehow. They said you would, and I thought you would. But--" He
stopped and looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a
friendly eye somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and
says, "Didn't _you_ think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?"

"Why, no; I--I--well, no, I b'lieve I didn't."

Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says:

"Tom, didn't _you_ think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid
Sawyer--'"

"My land!" she says, breaking in and jumping for him, "you impudent
young rascal, to fool a body so--" and was going to hug him, but he
fended her off, and says:

"No, not till you've asked me first."

So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed
him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and
he took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she
says:

"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for
_you_ at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming
but him."

"It's because it warn't _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom," he
says; "but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me
come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a
first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for
me to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger.
But it was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a
stranger to come."

"No--not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I
hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I
don't mind the terms--I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to
have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I
was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack."

We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and the
kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven
families--and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that's
laid in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk
of old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty
long blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it a
bit, neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of
times.

There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me
and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn't no use, they
didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was
afraid to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the
little boys says:

"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?"

"No," says the old man, "I reckon there ain't going to be any; and you
couldn't go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and
me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the
people; so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loafers out of town
before this time."

So there it was!--but _I_ couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in
the same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good night and went up
to bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the
lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't believe anybody
was going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn't
hurry up and give them one they'd get into trouble sure.

On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was
murdered, and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no
more, and what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all
about our "Royal Nonesuch" rapscallions, and as much of the raft
voyage as I had time to; and as we struck into the town and up through
the middle of it--it was as much as half after eight then--here comes
a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and
yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one
side to let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king
and the duke astraddle of a rail--that is, I knowed it _was_ the king
and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn't
look like nothing in the world that was human--just looked like a
couple of monstrous big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see
it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I
couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It
was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings _can_ be awful cruel to one
another.

We see we was too late--couldn't do no good. We asked some stragglers
about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very
innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the
middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal,
and the house rose up and went for them.

So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I was
before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow--though
I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't make no
difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't
got no sense, and just goes for him _anyway._  If I had a yaller dog
that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison
him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides,
and yet ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same.

Huck meets Tom's wagon coming down the road. Tom is at first startled by the "ghost," believing that Huck was murdered back in St. Petersburg, but is eventually convinced that Huck is actually alive. Tom even agrees to help Huck free Jim. Huck is shocked by Tom's willingness to do something so wrong by society's standards: "Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation," he tells us. Tom follows Huck to the Phelps house a half-hour later. The isolated family is thrilled to have another guest. Tom introduces himself as William Thompson from Ohio, stopping on his way to visit his uncle nearby. The lively Tom leans over and kisses his aunt in the middle of dinner, and she nearly slaps the boy she thinks is an impolite stranger. Laughing, Tom pretends that he is his own half-brother, Sid. The two boys wait for Sally and Silas to mention the runaway slave supposedly being held on their property, but the adults say nothing. However, when one of Sally and Silas's boys asks to see the show that is passing through town--the duke and the dauphin's--Silas says that "the runaway" alerted him to the fact that the show was a con. That night, Huck and Tom sneak out of the house. As they walk on the road, they see a mob of townspeople running the duke and the dauphin, tarred and feathered, out of town on a rail. Huck feels bad for the two, and his ill feelings toward them melt away. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another," he observes. Huck concludes that a conscience is useless because it makes you feel bad no matter what you do. Tom agrees


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

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

"No! Where?"

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

"Yes."

"What did you think the vittles was for?"

"For a dog."

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

"Why?"

"Because part of it was watermelon."

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

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

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

"Ready?"

"Yes," I says.

"All right--bring it out."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

"Yes."

"Well, then."

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

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

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

Tom says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

I hunched Tom, and whispers:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Does _who_ know us?"

"Why, dis-yer runaway nigger."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you sing out?"

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

"Not a word?"

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

"Did you ever see us before?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom told me what his plan was, and I see in a minute it was worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. Tom remembers seeing a black man delivering food to a shed on the Phelps property earlier that evening and deduces that the shed is where Jim is being held. His perceptive observation impresses Huck, who hatches a plan to free Jim by stealing the key to the shed and making off with Jim by night. Tom belittles this plan for its simplicity and lack of showmanship. Tom then comes up with a wild plan that Huck admits is fifteen times more stylish than his own--it might even get all three of them killed. Meanwhile, Huck finds it hard to believe that respectable Tom is going to sacrifice his reputation by helping a slave escape. Huck and Tom get Jim's keeper, a superstitious slave, to let them see Jim. When Jim cries out in recognition, Tom protects their secret by tricking Jim's keeper into thinking the cry was the work of witches. Tom and Huck promise to dig Jim out and begin to make preparations


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

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

"What do we want of a saw?"

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

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

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

I says:

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

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

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

"For what?" I says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Borrow a shirt, too."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Can't nobody _read_ his plates."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tools?" I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

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

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

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

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

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

"A couple of case-knives."

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

"Yes."

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

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

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

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

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

"_Jim_ don't know nobody in China."

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

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

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

"How long will it take, Tom?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom, disappointed that Silas Phelps has taken so few precautions to guard Jim, proclaims that he and Huck will have to invent all the obstacles to Jim's rescue. Tom says they must saw Jim's chain off instead of just lifting it off the bed's framework, because that's how it's done in all the books. Tom rattles off a list of other things that are allegedly necessary in plotting an escape, including a rope ladder, a moat, and a shirt on which Jim can keep a journal, presumably written in his own blood. Sawing Jim's leg off to free him from the chains would also be a nice touch. But since they are pressed for time, they will dig Jim out with case-knives, or large table knives. Despite all the theft that the plan entails, Tom chastises Huck for stealing a watermelon from the slaves' garden and makes Huck give the slaves a dime as compensation


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Gimme a _case-knife._"

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

He was always just that particular. Full of principle.

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

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

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

So he done it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom says:

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: TOM ADVISES A WITCH PIE]

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

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

Late that night, Tom and Huck, after much fruitless effort, give up digging with the knives and switch to pick-axes instead. The next day, they gather candlesticks, spoons, and tin plates. Tom says that Jim can etch a declaration of his captivity on the tin plate using the other objects, then throw it out the window for the world to read, just like in Tom's novels. That night, the boys dig their way to Jim, who is delighted to see them. He tells them that Sally and Silas have been to visit and pray with him. Jim does not understand the boys' fancy scheme but agrees to go along. Tom convinces Jim's keeper, Nat, who believes witches are haunting him, that the only cure is to bake a "witch pie" and give it to Jim. Tom plans to bake a rope ladder into the pie

In these chapters, Tom, Huck, and Jim revert, in many ways, to the roles they played at the beginning of the novel. Tom once again gets caught up in his romantic ideas of valiantly rescuing Jim, which, though humorous, are frustrating when we see how long they delay Jim's escape. Tom gets so enmeshed in his imagination that he and Huck almost forget why they are going to so much trouble. Huck, for his part, reverts to the same follower status in relation to Tom that he held at the beginning of the novel. Normally the voice of reason and conscience in his dealings with Tom, Huck seems to have totally forgotten his principles and his friendship with Jim. Both Tom and Huck get so enthralled in their game that they seem to forget that Jim is a human being. To the boys, he becomes almost an object or a prop, to the extent that they even ask him in all seriousness to share his quarters with snakes and rats. Imprisoned in the shed, Jim is just as captive and powerless as he was before he originally escaped. The return of this old dynamic between the boys and Jim clouds our view of the boys and of Huck's development in particular. Indeed, it seems in many ways that Huck, in his decision to follow Tom's plans, forgets many of the lessons he has learned with Jim on the raft. In a sense, Tom and Huck, in their manipulations of Jim, descend to the level of those who own or trade slaves. The boys' thoughtlessness and callousness contrast with the behavior of Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas, who, though themselves slave owners, frequently visit and pray with Jim. At the same time, however, Sally and Silas plan to return Jim to a life of imprisonment and cruelty, while the boys, despite their toying with Jim, are nevertheless trying to free him. This moral confusion becomes even deeper when we see how the boys dupe and victimize Aunt Sally as much as Jim. In the end, the moral confusion evident in these characters' interaction is so great that Twain leaves us with little basis upon which to make any substantive judgment.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, what else is gone, Sally?"

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

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

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

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

"Missus, dey's a sheet gone."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I know, but--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aunt Sally notices the missing shirt, candles, sheets, and other articles Huck and Tom steal for their plan, and she takes out her anger at the disappearances on seemingly everyone except the boys. She believes that perhaps rats have stolen some of the items, so Huck and Tom secretly plug up the ratholes in the house, confounding Uncle Silas when he goes to do the same job. By removing and then replacing sheets and spoons, the boys confuse Sally so much that she loses track of how many she has. The baking of the "witch pie" is a trying task, but the boys finally finish it and send it to Jim


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

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

Jim says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  _1. Here a captive heart busted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You got any spiders in here, Jim?"

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

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

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

Tom thought a minute or two, and says:

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

"Keep what, Mars Tom?"

"Why, a rattlesnake."

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

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

"_Tame_ it!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom insists that Jim scratch an inscription bearing his coat of arms on the wall of the shed, the way the books say. Making pens from the spoons and candlestick is a great deal of trouble, but they manage. Tom creates an unintentionally humorous coat of arms and composes a set of mournful declarations for Jim to inscribe on the wall. Tom, however, expresses disapproval at the fact that they are writing on a wall made of wood rather than stone. The boys try to steal a millstone, but it proves too heavy for them, so they sneak Jim out to help. As Huck and Jim struggle with the millstone, Huck wryly notes that Tom has a talent for supervising while others do the work. Tom tries to get Jim to take a rattlesnake or rat into the shack to tame, and then tries to convince Jim to grow a flower to water with his tears. Jim protests against the unnecessary amount of trouble Tom wants to create, but Tom replies that his ideas present opportunities for greatness