the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 15-16 | study guide | cliffsnotes

We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the
bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what
we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way
up the Ohio amongst the free states, and then be out of trouble.

Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a
towhead to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when
I paddled ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't
anything but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one
of them right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff
current, and the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by
the roots and away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made
me so sick and scared I couldn't budge for most a half a minute it
seemed to me--and then there warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see
twenty yards. I jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and
grabbed the paddle and set her back a stroke. But she didn't come. I
was in such a hurry I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to untie
her, but I was so excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do
anything with them.

As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,
right down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the
towhead warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of
it I shot out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which
way I was going than a dead man.

Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank
or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's
mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a
time. I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a
small whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it,
listening sharp to hear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't
heading for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time
I was heading away to the left of it--and not gaining on it much
either, for I was flying around, this way and that and t'other, but it
was going straight ahead all the time.

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the
time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops
that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly
I hears the whoop _behind_ me. I was tangled good now. That was
somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around.

I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me
yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its
place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me
again, and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head
down-stream, and I was all right if that was Jim and not some other
raftsman hollering. I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for
nothing don't look natural nor sound natural in a fog.

The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a
cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed
me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly
roared, the current was tearing by them so swift.

In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I
didn't draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was
an island, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it. It warn't no
towhead that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber
of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than
half a mile wide.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I
was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you
don't ever think of that. No, you _feel_ like you are laying dead
still on the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you
don't think to yourself how fast _you're_ going, but you catch your
breath and think, my! how that snag's tearing along. If you think it
ain't dismal and lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the
night, you try it once--you'll see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears
the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do
it, and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had
little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me--sometimes just a
narrow channel between, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was
there because I'd hear the wash of the current against the old dead
brush and trash that hung over the banks. Well, I warn't long loosing
the whoops down amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase them a
little while, anyway, because it was worse than chasing a
Jack-o'-lantern. You never knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap
places so quick and so much.

I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to
keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the
raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it
would get further ahead and clear out of hearing--it was floating a
little faster than what I was.

Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn't
hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a
snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I
laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't
want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn't help
it; so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.

But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars
was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a
big bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was
dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come
up dim out of last week.

It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest
kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could
see by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on
the water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but
a couple of saw-logs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and
chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft.

When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his
knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The
other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves
and branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time.

I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to
gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says:

"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?"

"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead--you ain'
drownded--you's back ag'in? It's too good for true, honey, it's too
good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you
ain' dead! you's back ag'in, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de
same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!"

"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?"

"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?"

"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?"

"How does I talk wild?"

"_How?_ Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all
that stuff, as if I'd been gone away?"

"Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. _Hain't_
you ben gone away?"

"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? _I_ hain't been gone
anywheres. Where would I go to?"

"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumfn wrong, dey is. Is I _me_, or who
_is_ I? Is I heah, or whah _is_ I? Now dat's what I wants to know."

"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a
tangle-headed old fool, Jim."

"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you tote out de line in
de canoe fer to make fas' to de towhead?"

"No, I didn't. What towhead? I hain't seen no towhead."

"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en
de raf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in
de fog?"

"What fog?"

"Why, _de_ fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you
whoop, en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un
us got los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn'
know whah he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en
have a turrible time en mos' git drownded?  Now ain' dat so,
boss--ain't it so? You answer me dat."

"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no
islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking
with you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I
reckon I done the same. You couldn't 'a' got drunk in that time, so of
course you've been dreaming."

"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?"

"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it
happen."

"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as--"

"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in
it. I know, because I've been here all the time."

Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying
over it. Then he says:

"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't
de powerfulest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo'
dat's tired me like dis one."

"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like
everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all
about it, Jim."

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as
it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must
start in and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a warning. He said
the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good,
but the current was another man that would get us away from him. The
whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if
we didn't try hard to make out to understand them they'd just take us
into bad luck, 'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was
troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all
kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn't talk
back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog
and into the big clear river, which was the free states, and wouldn't
have no more trouble.

It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it
was clearing up again now.

"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim,"
I says; "but what does _these_ things stand for?"

It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You
could see them first-rate now.

Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash
again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he
couldn't seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place
again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he
looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:

"What do dey stan' for? I's gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore out
wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz
mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become
er me en de raf'.  En when I wake up en fine you back ag'in, all safe
en soun', de tears come, en I could 'a' got down on my knees en kiss
yo' foot, I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you
could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is _trash_; en
trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en
makes 'em ashamed."

Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there
without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel
so mean I could almost kissed _his_ foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble
myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it
afterward, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I
wouldn't done that one if I'd 'a' knowed it would make him feel that
way.

We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind
a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She
had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as
thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and
an open camp-fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end.
There was a power of style about her. It _amounted_ to something being
a raftsman on such a craft as that.

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and
got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on
both sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We
talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got
to it. I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't
but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them
lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if
the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said
maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming
into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim--and me too. So the
question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light
showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a
trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know
how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a
smoke on it and waited.

There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and
not pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it,
because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it
he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every
little while he jumps up and says:

"Dah she is?"

But it warn't. It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning-bugs; so he set
down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him
all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can
tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him,
because I begun to get it through my head that he _was_ most free--and
who was to blame for it? Why, _me_. I couldn't get that out of my
conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't
rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to
me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and
it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out
to myself that _I_ warn't to blame, because _I_ didn't run Jim off
from his rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says,
every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you
could 'a' paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so--I couldn't
get around that no way. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to
me, "What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her
nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?
What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so
mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you
your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how.
_That's_ what she done."

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I
fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was
fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still.
Every time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went through
me like a shot, and I thought if it _was_ Cairo I reckoned I would die
of miserableness.

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was
saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free state he
would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he
got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to
where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two
children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an
Ab'litionist to go and steal them.

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk
such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in
him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the
old saying, "Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell." Thinks I,
this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I
had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and
saying he would steal his children--children that belonged to a man I
didn't even know; a man that hadn't ever done me no harm.

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My
conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I
says to it, "Let up on me--it ain't too late yet--I'll paddle ashore
at the first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light as a
feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out
sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By and by one
showed. Jim sings out:

"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels! Dat's de
good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!"

I says:

"I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know."

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom
for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he
says:

"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on
accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it
hadn' ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck;
you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de _only_ fren' ole Jim's
got now."

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says
this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along
slow then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I
started or whether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

"Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep'
his promise to ole Jim."

Well, I just felt sick.  But I says, I _got_ to do it--I can't get
_out_ of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with
guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:

"What's that yonder?"

"A piece of a raft," I says.

"Do you belong on it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any men on it?"

"Only one, sir."

"Well, there's five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head
of the bend. Is your man white or black?"

I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. I
tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't
man enough--hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I
just give up trying, and up and says:

"He's white."

"I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves."

"I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap that's there, and maybe
you'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He's sick--and
so is mam and Mary Ann."

"Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I s'pose we've got to.
Come, buckle to your paddle, and let's get along."

I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a
stroke or two, I says:

"Pap 'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody
goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't
do it by myself."

"Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what's the matter
with your father?"

"It's the--a--the--well, it ain't anything much."

They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little ways to the raft
now. One says:

"Boy, that's a lie. What _is_ the matter with your pap? Answer up
square now, and it 'll be the better for you."

"I will, sir, I will, honest--but don't leave us, please. It's
the--the--Gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you
the headline, you won't have to come a-near the raft--please do."

"Set her back, John, set her back!" says one. They backed water. "Keep
away, boy--keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has
blowed it to us. Your pap's got the smallpox, and you know it precious
well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all
over?"

"Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and they
just went away and left us."

"Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry for
you, but we--well, hang it, we don't want the smallpox, you see. Look
here, I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by yourself, or
you'll smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty
miles, and you'll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river.
It will be long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell
them your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool
again, and let people guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do
you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good
boy. It wouldn't do any good to land yonder where the light is--it's
only a wood-yard. Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to
say he's in pretty hard luck. Here, I'll put a twenty-dollar gold
piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty
mean to leave you; but my kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox,
don't you see?"

"Hold on, Parker," says the man, "here's a twenty to put on the board
for me. Good-by, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll be all
right."

"That's so, my boy--good-by, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers
you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it."

"Good-by, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I
can help it."

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because
I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me
to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get _started_ right
when he's little ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't
nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat.
Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd 'a'
done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do
now? No, says I, I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now.
Well, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's
troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the
wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I
reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do
whichever come handiest at the time.

I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked all around; he
warn't anywhere. I says:

"Jim!"

"Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud."

He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I
told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:

"I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was
gwyne to shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to
de raf' agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck!
Dat _wuz_ de smartes' dodge! I tell you, chile, I 'spec it save' ole
Jim--ole Jim ain't going to forgit you for dat, honey."

Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise--twenty
dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat
now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free
states. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he
wished we was already there.

Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about
hiding the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles,
and getting all ready to quit rafting.

That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away
down in a left-hand bend.

I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man out
in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and says:

"Mister, is that town Cairo?"

"Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool."

"What town is it, mister?"

"If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin'
around me for about a half a minute longer you'll get something you
won't want."

I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never
mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.

We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but
it was high ground, so I didn't go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim
said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead tolerable
close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did
Jim. I says:

"Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night."

He says:

"Doan' le's talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck. I
awluz 'spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn't done wid its work."

"I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim--I do wish I'd never laid
eyes on it."

"It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn't know. Don't you blame yo'self
'bout it."

When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure
enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with
Cairo.

We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we
couldn't take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn't no way
but to wait for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the
chances. So we slept all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to
be fresh for the work, and when we went back to the raft about dark
the canoe was gone!

We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to say.
We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the
rattlesnake-skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would only
look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more
bad luck--and keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep
still.

By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn't no
way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to
buy a canoe to go back in. We warn't going to borrow it when there
warn't anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people
after us.

So we shoved out after dark on the raft.

Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to handle a
snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe
it now if they read on and see what more it done for us.

The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we
didn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and
more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next
meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and you
can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then
along comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged
she would see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us;
they go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the
reefs; but nights like this they bull right up the channel against the
whole river.

We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she
was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see
how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites
off a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and
thinks he's mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was
going to try and shave us; but she didn't seem to be sheering off a
bit. She was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking
like a black cloud with rows of glow-worms around it; but all of a
sudden she bulged out, big and scary, with a long row of wide-open
furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and
guards hanging right over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling
of bells to stop the engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of
steam--and as Jim went overboard on one side and I on the other, she
come smashing straight through the raft.

I dived--and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel
had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I could
always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a
minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was
nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of
my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current; and
of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she
stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was
churning along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though
I could hear her.

I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer;
so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was "treading water," and
struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see
that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which
meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way.

It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a
good long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up
the bank. I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along
over rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run
across a big old-fashioned double log house before I noticed it. I was
going to rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went
to howling and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another
peg.

Jim and Huck believe that three more nights will bring them to Cairo, Illinois, and, from that point, they can take a steamboat up the Ohio River to the free states. On the second night, however, a dense fog rolls in, and the strong current separates Huck and Jim. After calling in vain for Jim, Huck decides to take "one little cat-nap" and wakes up several hours later under a clear sky. He eventually finds Jim, who is in tears over seeing Huck again. Instead of celebrating their reunion, Huck decides to act as if Jim has been dreaming and Huck has been on the raft the entire night. Jim's concern turns to confusion, but he finally realizes Huck is lying. He admonishes Huck for the prank and says that only "trash" would treat a friend like that. After a few minutes, Huck feels so ashamed that he apologizes to Jim. Jim and Huck decide that Huck must go ashore to check their progress. Jim's excitement is obvious, and Huck struggles with his shame of helping a slave escape. When Jim says he will steal his children out of slavery if necessary, Huck decides he must go ashore and turn Jim in to the authorities. Instead of rushing ashore at dawn to free his conscience, however, Huck covers for Jim when he runs into townspeople. Shortly after, Huck and Jim see the clear water of the Ohio River and realize they have passed Cairo in the fog. They decide to buy another canoe to head upriver, but a steamboat wrecks the raft and the two are once again separated.

Before 1991, critics largely believed that Twain stopped writing after Chapter 16 and set the manuscript aside. The assertion appears logical, for Cairo is, indeed, the original destination of Jim and Huck. If Huck and Jim make it to Cairo, they can head north up the Ohio River, and the story heads toward its conclusion. It is obvious that Twain was struggling with the novel's direction, but the 1991 discovery of the first half of the Huck Finn manuscript revealed that Twain had continued through Chapter 18 and then set aside the manuscript for two years. Although Huck is distraught at the thought of losing Jim, he does play the horrible prank, which contrasts sharply with Jim's parental demeanor. Tom, no doubt, would have been proud of Huck's creativity and imagination, but Huck realizes that he has done more than embarrass Jim; he has taken advantage of his trust and friendship. The elaborate joke wounds Jim, and Huck is not prepared for Jim's confession that his "heart wuz mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become er me en de raf'." Jim's somber comment serves, in a sense, to break the heart of Huck, and readers realize, just as Huck does, that Jim would give his life for the young boy who has always been on the opposite side of societal laws. Huck's comment that it took him 15 minutes to apologize is overshadowed only by the fact that he actually does. In Jim and Huck's squalid world, an apology from a white person to a slave is not only unnecessary, it is scandalous. Huck, however, does not regret his decision to apologize and learns another lesson about Jim's loyalty. He does not play another prank on Jim, but he continues to feel guilt over helping a slave. The irony of the situation is painful, as Huck condemns himself for protecting Jim instead of recognizing the heroics involved. By passing Cairo, Twain is able to navigate the familiar setting of the Mississippi River and the South. The passage down-river also allows Huck to continue his battle between his instincts and what society dictates he should do. Despite his shame from the prank, Huck still struggles with his conscience. His decision to turn Jim in details the twisted logic of slavery that condemns a man for wanting to rescue his children from captivity. The biting satire is obvious, as is the realization that Huck cannot defy society's moral code of racism without a struggle. He is, after all, resisting all the social and cultural reasoning that made slavery possible. When the two men searching for runaway slaves surprise Huck, however, he develops an elaborate story that saves Jim. Once again Huck's actions mirror his natural conscience. Huck is constantly pulled between what he is supposed to think and feel  and what he actually feels and thinks . He finds himself aiding Jim, who grows more certain of Huck's loyalty and friendship. Glossary Cairo city in southern Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. buckle to paddle hard. Muddy the Mississippi River.


the adventures of huckleberry finn: summary & analysis | chapter 17-18 | study guide | cliffsnotes

In about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his
head out, and says:

"Be done, boys! Who's there?"

I says:

"It's me."

"Who's me?"

"George Jackson, sir."

"What do you want?"

"I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs
won't let me."

"What are you prowling around here this time of night for--hey?"

"I warn't prowling around, sir; I fell overboard off of the
steamboat."

"Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you
say your name was?"

"George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy."

"Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't be afraid--nobody
'll hurt you. But don't try to budge; stand right where you are. Rouse
out Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is
there anybody with you?"

"No, sir, nobody."

I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light.
The man sung out: "Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool--ain't
you got any sense? Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if
you and Tom are ready, take your places."

"All ready."

"Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?"

"No, sir; I never heard of them."

"Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all ready. Step forward,
George Jackson. And mind, don't you hurry--come mighty slow. If
there's anybody with you, let him keep back--if he shows himself he'll
be shot. Come along now. Come slow; push the door open yourself--just
enough to squeeze in, d'you hear?"

I didn't hurry; I couldn't if I'd a-wanted to. I took one slow step at
a time and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart.
The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little
behind me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them
unlocking and unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and
pushed it a little and a little more till somebody said, "There,
that's enough--put your head in." I done it, but I judged they would
take it off.

The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me,
and me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with
guns pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray
and about sixty, the other two thirty or more--all of them fine and
handsome--and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two
young women which I couldn't see right well. The old gentleman says:

"There; I reckon it's all right. Come in."

As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it
and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and
they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor,
and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front
windows--there warn't none on the side. They held the candle, and took
a good look at me, and all said, "Why, _he_ ain't a Shepherdson--no,
there ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped
I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no
harm by it--it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my
pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all
right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about
myself; but the old lady says:

"Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be; and don't
you reckon it may be he's hungry?"

"True for you, Rachel--I forgot."

So the old lady says:

"Betsy" (this was a nigger woman), "you fly around and get him
something to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls
go and wake up Buck and tell him--oh, here he is himself. Buck, take
this little stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress
him up in some of yours that's dry."

Buck looked about as old as me--thirteen or fourteen or along there,
though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a
shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging
one fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other
one. He says:

"Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?"

They said, no, 'twas a false alarm.

"Well," he says, "if they'd 'a' ben some, I reckon I'd 'a' got one."

They all laughed, and Bob says:

"Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow in
coming."

"Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right. I'm always kept down;
I don't get no show."

"Never mind, Buck, my boy," says the old man, "you'll have show
enough, all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you
now, and do as your mother told you."

When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a
roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he
asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to
tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods
day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle
went out. I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about it before, no
way.

"Well, guess," he says.

"How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never heard tell of it
before?"

"But you can guess, can't you?  It's just as easy."

"_Which_ candle?" I says.

"Why, any candle," he says.

"I don't know where he was," says I; "where was he?"

"Why, he was in the _dark_! That's where he was!"

"Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?"

"Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are you
going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming
times--they don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got a
dog--and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in.
Do you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You
bet I don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I
reckon I'd better put 'em on, but I'd ruther not, it's so warm. Are
you all ready? All right. Come along, old hoss."

Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk--that is what
they had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that ever
I've come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob
pipes, except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young
women. They all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The young
women had quilts around them, and their hair down their backs. They
all asked me questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the
family was living on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and
my sister Mary Ann run off and got married and never was heard of no
more, and Bill went to hunt them and he warn't heard of no more, and
Tom and Mort died, and then there warn't nobody but just me and pap
left, and he was just trimmed down to nothing, on account of his
troubles; so when he died I took what there was left, because the farm
didn't belong to us, and started up the river, deck passage, and fell
overboard; and that was how I come to be here. So they said I could
have a home there as long as I wanted it. Then it was most daylight
and everybody went to bed, and I went to bed with Buck, and when I
waked up in the morning, drat it all, I had forgot what my name was.
So I laid there about an hour trying to think, and when Buck waked up
I says:

"Can you spell, Buck?"

"Yes," he says.

"I bet you can't spell my name," says I.

"I bet you what you dare I can," says he.

"All right," says I, "go ahead."

"G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n--there now," he says.

"Well," says I, "you done it, but I didn't think you could. It ain't
no slouch of a name to spell--right off without studying."

I set it down, private, because somebody might want _me_ to spell it
next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was
used to it. It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too.
I hadn't seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and
had so much style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor
a wooden one with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the
same as houses in town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign
of a bed; but heaps of parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a
big fireplace that was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept
clean and red by pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another
brick; sometimes they wash them over with red water-paint that they
call Spanish-brown, same as they do in town. They had big brass
dog-irons that could hold up a saw-log. There was a clock on the
middle of the mantelpiece, with a picture of a town painted on the
bottom half of the glass front, and a round place in the middle of it
for the sun, and you could see the pendulum swinging behind it. It was
beautiful to hear that clock tick; and sometimes when one of these
peddlers had been along and scoured her up and got her in good shape,
she would start in and strike a hundred and fifty before she got
tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for her.

Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock,
made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the
parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other;
and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't open their
mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked through
underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out
behind those things. On the table in the middle of the room was a kind
of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches
and grapes piled up in it, which was much redder and yellower and
prettier than real ones is, but they warn't real because you could see
where pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk, or
whatever it was, underneath.

This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and
blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. It
come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books,
too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a
big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim's Progress, about a
man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it
now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another was
Friendship's Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry; but I
didn't read the poetry. Another was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another
was Dr. Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if
a body was sick or dead. There was a hymn-book, and a lot of other
books. And there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound,
too--not bagged down in the middle and busted, like an old basket.

They had pictures hung on the walls--mainly Washingtons and
Lafayettes, and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called "Signing
the Declaration." There was some that they called crayons, which one
of the daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only
fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see
before--blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim
black dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a
cabbage in the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel
bonnet with a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with
black tape, and very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was
leaning pensive on a tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping
willow, and her other hand hanging down her side holding a white
handkerchief and a reticule, and underneath the picture it said "Shall
I Never See Thee More Alas." Another one was a young lady with her
hair all combed up straight to the top of her head, and knotted there
in front of a comb like a chair-back, and she was crying into a
handkerchief and had a dead bird laying on its back in her other hand
with its heels up, and underneath the picture it said "I Shall Never
Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas."  There was one where a young lady
was at a window looking up at the moon, and tears running down her
cheeks; and she had an open letter in one hand with black sealing-wax
showing on one edge of it, and she was mashing a locket with a chain
to it against her mouth, and underneath the picture it said "And Art
Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas." These was all nice pictures, I
reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take to them, because if ever I
was down a little they always give me the fan-tods. Everybody was
sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures
to do, and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost.
But I reckoned that with her disposition she was having a better time
in the graveyard. She was at work on what they said was her greatest
picture when she took sick, and every day and every night it was her
prayer to be allowed to live till she got it done, but she never got
the chance. It was a picture of a young woman in a long white gown,
standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump off, with her hair
all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with the tears running
down her face, and she had two arms folded across her breast, and two
arms stretched out in front, and two more reaching up toward the
moon--and the idea was to see which pair would look best, and then
scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was saying, she died before
she got her mind made up, and now they kept this picture over the head
of the bed in her room, and every time her birthday come they hung
flowers on it. Other times it was hid with a little curtain. The young
woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so
many arms it made her look too spidery, seemed to me.

This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to
paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it
out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of
her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a
boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was
drownded:

ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D

    And did young Stephen sicken,
    And did young Stephen die?
    And did the sad hearts thicken,
    And did the mourners cry?

    No; such was not the fate of
    Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
    Though sad hearts round him thickened,
    'Twas not from sickness' shots.

    No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
    Nor measles drear with spots;
    Not these impaired the sacred name
    Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

    Despised love struck not with woe
    That head of curly knots,
    Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
    Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

    O no. Then list with tearful eye,
    Whilst I his fate do tell.
    His soul did from this cold world fly
    By falling down a well.

    They got him out and emptied him;
    Alas it was too late;
    His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
    In the realms of the good and great.

If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was
fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could 'a' done by and by.
Buck said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever
have to stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she
couldn't find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and
slap down another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could
write about anything you choose to give her to write about just so it
was sadful. Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died,
she would be on hand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called
them tributes. The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then
Emmeline, then the undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of
Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead
person's name, which was Whistler. She warn't ever the same after
that; she never complained, but she kinder pined away and did not live
long. Poor thing, many's the time I made myself go up to the little
room that used to be hers and get out her poor old scrap-book and read
in it when her pictures had been aggravating me and I had soured on
her a little. I liked all that family, dead ones and all, and warn't
going to let anything come between us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about
all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't seem right that
there warn't nobody to make some about her now she was gone; so I
tried to sweat out a verse or two myself, but I couldn't seem to make
it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's room trim and nice, and all the
things fixed in it just the way she liked to have them when she was
alive, and nobody ever slept there. The old lady took care of the room
herself, though there was plenty of niggers, and she sewed there a
good deal and read her Bible there mostly.

Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains
on the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with
vines all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a
little old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing
was ever so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing "The Last Link is
Broken" and play "The Battle of Prague" on it. The walls of all the
rooms was plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole
house was whitewashed on the outside.

It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed
and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of
the day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn't be
better. And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it too!

Col. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all
over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and
that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow
Douglas said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first
aristocracy in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he
warn't no more quality than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was
very tall and very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign
of red in it anywheres; he was clean-shaved every morning all over his
thin face, and he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind
of nostrils, and a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest
kind of eyes, sunk so deep back that they seemed like they was looking
out of caverns at you, as you may say. His forehead was high, and his
hair was gray and straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was
long and thin, and every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a
full suit from head to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your
eyes to look at it; and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass
buttons on it. He carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it.
There warn't no frivolishness about him, not a bit, and he warn't ever
loud. He was as kind as he could be--you could feel that, you know,
and so you had confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to
see; but when he straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the
lightning begun to flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to
climb a tree first, and find out what the matter was afterwards. He
didn't ever have to tell anybody to mind their manners--everybody was
always good-mannered where he was. Everybody loved to have him around,
too; he was sunshine most always--I mean he made it seem like good
weather. When he turned into a cloud-bank it was awful dark for half a
minute, and that was enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for
a week.

When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got
up out of their chairs and give them good day, and didn't set down
again till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard
where the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to
him, and he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was
mixed, and then they bowed and said, "Our duty to you, sir, and
madam"; and _they_ bowed the least bit in the world and said thank
you, and so they drank, all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful
of water on the sugar and the mite of whisky or apple-brandy in the
bottom of their tumblers, and give it to me and Buck, and we drank to
the old people too.

Bob was the oldest and Tom next--tall, beautiful men with very broad
shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They
dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and
wore broad Panama hats.

Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud
and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up; but
when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks,
like her father. She was beautiful.

So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was
gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty.

Each person had their own nigger to wait on them--Buck too. My nigger
had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody do
anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time.

This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be
more--three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died.

The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers.
Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or
fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such
junketings round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the
woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly
kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a
handsome lot of quality, I tell you.

There was another clan of aristocracy around there--five or six
families--mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned
and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The
Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat-landing, which
was about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there
with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there
on their fine horses.

One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a
horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:

"Quick! Jump for the woods!"

We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty
soon a splendid young man came galloping down the road, setting his
horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his
pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I
heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from
his head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we
was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run.
The woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the
bullet, and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he
rode away the way he come--to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't
see. We never stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's
eyes blazed a minute--'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged--then his face
sort of smoothed down, and he says, kind of gentle:

"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you step
into the road, my boy?"

"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage."

Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was
telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The
two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she
turned pale, but the color come back when she found the man warn't
hurt.

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by
ourselves, I says:

"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

"Well, I bet I did."

"What did he do to you?"

"Him? He never done nothing to me."

"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"

"Why, nothing--only it's on account of the feud."

"What's a feud?"

"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?"

"Never heard of it before--tell me about it."

"Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with
another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills _him_;
then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the
_cousins_ chip in--and by and by everybody's killed off, and there
ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."

"Has this one been going on long, Buck?"

"Well, I should _reckon!_ It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along
there. There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle
it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the
man that won the suit--which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody
would."

"What was the trouble about. Buck?--land?"

"I reckon maybe--I don't know."

"Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford Shepherdson?"

"Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago."

"Don't anybody know?"

"Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but
they don't know now what the row was about in the first place."

"Has there been many killed, Buck?"

"Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill. Pa's
got a few buckshot in him; but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh
much, anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's been
hurt once or twice."

"Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?"

"Yes; we got one and they got one. 'Bout three months ago my cousin
Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t'other side
of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame'
foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind
him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with his gun
in his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and 'stead of
jumping off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could outrun him;
so they had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man
a-gaining all the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any use, so he
stopped and faced around so as to have the bullet-holes in front, you
know, and the old man he rode up and shot him down. But he didn't git
much chance to enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid
_him_ out."

"I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck."

"I reckon he _warn't_ a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't a
coward amongst them Shepherdsons--not a one. And there ain't no
cowards amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up his
end in a fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords,
and come out winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse
and got behind a little woodpile, and kep' his horse before him to
stop the bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and
capered around the old man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered
away at them. Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and
crippled, but the Grangerfords had to be _fetched_ home--and one of
'em was dead, and another died the next day. No, sir; if a body's out
hunting for cowards he don't want to fool away any time amongst them
Shepherdsons, becuz they don't breed any of that _kind_."

Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody
a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them
between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The
Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching--all about
brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was
a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a
powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and
preforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to
me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their
chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and
a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went
up to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that
sweet Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and
she took me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I
liked her, and I said I did; and she asked me if I would do something
for her and not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said she'd
forgot her Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two
other books, and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to
her, and not say nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and
slipped off up the road, and there warn't anybody at the church,
except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and
hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you
notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a
hog is different.

Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural for a girl to be in
such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops a
little piece of paper with "_Half past two_" wrote on it with a
pencil. I ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't
make anything out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and
when I got home and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting
for me. She pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the
Testament till she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she
looked glad; and before a body could think she grabbed me and give me
a squeeze, and said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell
anybody. She was mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes
lighted up, and it made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal
astonished, but when I got my breath I asked her what the paper was
about, and she asked me if I had read it, and I said no, and she asked
me if I could read writing, and I told her "no, only coarse-hand," and
then she said the paper warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her
place, and I might go and play now.

I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty
soon I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was
out of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then
comes a-running, and says:

"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole
stack o' water-moccasins."

Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter
know a body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for
them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says:

"All right; trot ahead."

I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded
ankle-deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat
piece of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and
vines, and he says:

"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey
is. I's seed 'm befo'; I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'."

Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees
hid him. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch
as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying
there asleep--and, by jings, it was my old Jim!

I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to
him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad,
but he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and
heard me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn't want
nobody to pick _him_ up and take him into slavery again. Says he:

"I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considerable
ways behine you towards de las'; when you landed I reck'ned I could
ketch up wid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I
see dat house I begin to go slow. I 'uz off too fur to hear what dey
say to you--I wuz 'fraid o' de dogs; but when it 'uz all quiet ag'in I
knowed you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for
day. Early in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de
fields, en dey tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't track
me on accounts o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat every night,
en tells me how you's a-gittin' along."

"Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?"

"Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do
sumfn--but we's all right now. I ben a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles,
as I got a chanst, en a-patchin' up de raf' nights when--"

"_What_ raft, Jim?"

"Our ole raf'."

"You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?"

"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal--one en' of her was; but
dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef we
hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn't ben
so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de
sayin' is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase
now she's all fixed up ag'in mos' as good as new, en we's got a new
lot o' stuff, in de place o' what 'uz los'."

"Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim--did you catch her?"

"How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er de niggers
foun' her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a
crick 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout which un 'um
she b'long to de mos' dat I come to heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups
en settles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv 'um,
but to you en me; en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to grab a young white
genlman's propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin 'm ten cents
apiece, en dey 'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud
come along en make 'm rich ag'in. Dey's mighty good to me, dese
niggers is, en whatever I wants 'm to do fur me I doan' have to ast 'm
twice, honey. Dat Jack's a good nigger, en pooty smart."

"Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come, and
he'd show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens _he_ ain't
mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it 'll be
the truth."

I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut it
pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and
go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was--didn't seem to be
anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was up
and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down-stairs--nobody
around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks
I, what does it mean? Down by the woodpile I comes across my Jack, and
says:

"What's it all about?"

Says he:

"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?"

"No," says I, "I don't."

"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in de
night some time--nobody don't know jis' when; run off to get married
to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know--leastways, so dey 'spec. De
fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour ago--maybe a little mo'--en' I
_tell_ you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another hurryin' up guns en
hosses _you_ never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de
relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de
river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo' he kin
git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty
rough times."

"Buck went off 'thout waking me up."

"Well, I reck'n he _did!_ Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it. Mars
Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a
Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en
you bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst."

I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin to
hear guns a good ways off. When I came in sight of the log store and
the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees
and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the
forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a
wood-rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first
I was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn't.

There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the
open place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to
get at a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside
of the steamboat-landing; but they couldn't come it. Every time one of
them showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at.
The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could
watch both ways.

By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started
riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady
bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All
the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and
started to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys
started on the run. They got half-way to the tree I was in before the
men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and
took out after them. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no
good, the boys had too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was
in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the
bulge on the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a
slim young chap about nineteen years old.

The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was
out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what to
make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men
come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or
other--wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I
dasn't come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and
his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this
day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two
or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush.
Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their
relations--the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what
was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across
the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take
on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him--I
hain't ever heard anything like it.

All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men
had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without
their horses! The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as
they swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them
and singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most
fell out of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell _all_ that happened--it
would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever
come ashore that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get
shut of them--lots of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.
Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little
gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the
trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up
my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned
I was to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that
Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half past two and run
off; and I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the
curious way she acted, and then maybe he would 'a' locked her up, and
this awful mess wouldn't ever happened.

When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river-bank a
piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and
tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces,
and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering
up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me.

It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through
the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I
tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows,
red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was
gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most a
minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me
says:

"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise."

It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along
the bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me,
he was so glad to see me. He says:

"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead ag'in. Jack's
been heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home
no mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a-startin' startin' de raf' down
towards de mouf er de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en
leave soon as Jack comes ag'in en tells me for certain you _is_ dead.
Lawsy, I's mighty glad to git you back ag'in, honey."

I says:

"All right--that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll think
I've been killed, and floated down the river--there's something up
there that 'll help them think so--so don't you lose no time, Jim, but
just shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can."

I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in
the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and
judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat
since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk,
and pork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so
good when it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and
had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and
so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home
like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and
smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and
comfortable on a raft.

Once on shore, Huck finds himself at an impressive log house owned by the Grangerford family. After they are convinced that Huck is not a member of the Shepherdson family, the Grangerfords take Huck in, give him warm clothes, and feed him. Huck tells everyone that his name is George Jackson and that he fell off a passing steamboat. The Grangerfords have a son named Buck, who is about Huck's age, and the two become close friends over the next few days. Huck admires the stately house with its large fireplaces, ornate door locks, and elaborate decor. The morbid paintings and poetry of Emmeline, a deceased daughter of the Grangerfords, also fascinate him. Huck soon learns that the Grangerfords share a steamboat landing with another aristocratic family named Shepherdson. When Huck and Buck go hunting, Buck takes a shot at young Harney Shepherdson and misses. While the boys run away, Huck notices that Harney has a chance to shoot Buck but rides away instead. Huck wonders about Harney but finally decides he was going after his hat. In response to Huck's questions, Buck explains that the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons have been feuding for so long that no one remembers why it began in the first place. After Huck delivers a message for Sophia Grangerford, he is taken over to the swamp by one of the family's many slaves. Among the trees, Huck finds Jim, who says that he has found the raft. The next day, Miss Sophia elopes with Harney Shepherdson. The bizarre feud escalates, and several men on both sides of the family are killed, including Buck. Huck regrets ever coming ashore and cannot tell us "all that happened" because it would make him sick to do so. He rejoins Jim, and the two decide a raft is the best home.

The introduction of the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons adds a new element of humor to Twain's novel. Whereas earlier Twain satirizes the actions of "common" townspeople, the stately families provide a perfect opportunity for Twain to burlesque the Southern code of chivalry and aristocracy of the antebellum South. The Grangerford's house represents a gaudy and tasteless display of wealth, and Huck's appreciation of the decor only adds to the humor. The decor that exemplifies the Grangerford's taste is the artistic work of Emmeline, the deceased daughter who pined away after failing to discover a rhyme for "Whistler." In contrast to Huck's practical fascination with death, Emmeline's work displays a romantic and sentimental obsession that even gives Huck the "fantods." Twain also uses the families to underscore his subtle satire on religion, as the two families attend the same church, leaning their guns against the walls during the sermon about "brotherly love." The mixture of theology and gunplay is ironic, as is the family's subsequent reaction that the sermon was filled with positive messages about "faith and good work and free grace and preforeordestination." Twain's Calvinist background resurfaces in his combination of predestination and foreordination. The feud between the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons is one of the more memorable chapters in Huck Finn because of its extreme violence. The fact that the two noble families do not know why they continue to fight is ironic, but the irony deepens when the families actually draw blood. Huck's casual observance turns into participation, and when he witnesses the death of his young friend, Buck, he is unable to recount the story to readers. The hated calls of "Kill them, kill them!" prompt Huck to wish that he had never gone ashore, despite his affection for the Grangerfords. The theme of death and brutality, then, is present in all facets of society, including the wealthy, and the peace of the river is never more apparent to Huck. When Huck returns to the raft and he and Jim are safe, Huck wearily observes that " . . . there warn't no home like a raft, after all . . . . You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft." The unaffected statement solidifies the raft/shore dichotomy and reinforces the idea that society, despite its sophistication, is cruel and unjust. Glossary dog-irons iron braces used to hold firewood. Pilgrim's Progress a religious allegory by John Bunyan . mud-cat a catfish. liberty-pole a tall flagstaff planted in the ground. bowie a steel knife about fifteen inches long, with a single edge, usually carried in a sheath. nip and tuck so close that the outcome is uncertain. predestination the theological doctrine that God foreordained everything that would happen. foreordination predestination. puncheon floor floor made of a heavy, broad piece of roughly dressed timber with one side hewed flat.