We dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along
down the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a
mighty long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish
moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It
was the first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn
and dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and
they begun to work the villages again.

First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough
for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a
dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a
kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped
in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at
yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up
and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They
tackled missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling
fortunes, and a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have
no luck. So at last they got just about dead broke, and laid around
the raft as she floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying
nothing, by the half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate.

And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together
in the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a
time. Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged
they was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned
it over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to
break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the
counterfeit-money business, or something. So then we was pretty
scared, and made up an agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the
world to do with such actions, and if we ever got the least show we
would give them the cold shake and clear out and leave them behind.
Well, early one morning we hid the raft in a good, safe place about
two mile below a little bit of a shabby village named Pikesville, and
the king he went ashore and told us all to stay hid whilst he went up
to town and smelt around to see if anybody had got any wind of the
"Royal Nonesuch" there yet. ("House to rob, you _mean_," says I to
myself; "and when you get through robbing it you'll come back here and
wonder what has become of me and Jim and the raft--and you'll have to
take it out in wondering.") And he said if he warn't back by midday
the duke and me would know it was all right, and we was to come along.

So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and
was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we
couldn't seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little
thing. Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday
come and no king; we could have a change, anyway--and maybe a chance
for _the_ chance on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the
village, and hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found
him in the back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of
loafers bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening
with all his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do
nothing to them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and
the king begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I
lit out and shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the
river road like a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind
that it would be a long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I
got down there all out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out:

"Set her loose, Jim; we're all right now!"

But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was
gone! I set up a shout--and then another--and then another one; and
run this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it
warn't no use--old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't
help it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the
road, trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy
walking, and asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and
so, and he says:

"Yes."

"Whereabouts?" says I.

"Down to Silas Phelps's place, two mile below here. He's a runaway
nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?"

"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two
ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out--and told me to
lay down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since;
afeard to come out."

"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got
him. He run off f'm down South som'ers."

"It's a good job they got him."

"Well, I _reckon!_ There's two hundred dollars dollars' reward on him.
It's like picking up money out'n the road."

"Yes, it is--and I could 'a' had it if I'd been big enough; I see him
_first_. Who nailed him?"

"It was an old fellow--a stranger--and he sold out his chance in him
for forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait.
Think o' that, now! You bet _I'd_ wait, if it was seven year."

"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth no
more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something
ain't straight about it."

"But it _is_, though--straight as a string. I see the handbill myself.
It tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tells
the plantation he's frum, below Newr_leans_. No-sirree-_bob_, they
ain't no trouble 'bout _that_ speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a
chaw tobacker, won't ye?"

I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in
the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I
wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After
all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels,
here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined,
because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that,
and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too,
for forty dirty dollars.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to
be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd _got_ to be a
slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to
tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two
things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness
for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again;
and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger,
and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and
disgraced. And then think of _me!_ It would get all around that Huck
Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see
anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his
boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing,
and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long
as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The
more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me,
and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at
last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of
Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness
was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was
stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm,
and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and
ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur
and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared.  Well, I
tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by
saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but
something inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday-school, you
could 'a' gone to it; and if you'd 'a' done it they'd 'a' learnt you
there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes
to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I
couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I
kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It
warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from _me_, neither. I
knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart
warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was
playing double. I was letting _on_ to give up sin, but away inside of
me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my
mouth _say_ I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and
write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in
me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I
found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to
do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the
letter--and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I
felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all
gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited,
and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below
Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the
reward if you send. HUCK FINN.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever
felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it
straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking
how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being
lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over
our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the
day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and
we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I
couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only
the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead
of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was
when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the
swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would
always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of
for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I
saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so
grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the
world, and the _only_ one he's got now; and then I happened to look
around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was
a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things,
and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and
then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll _go_ to hell"--and tore it up. It was awful
thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said;
and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing
out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was
in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a
starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if
I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long
as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.

Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some
considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that
suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down
the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with
my raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept
the night through, and got up before it was light, and had my
breakfast, and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and
one thing or another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for
shore. I landed below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my
bundle in the woods, and then filled up the canoe with water, and
loaded rocks into her and sunk her where I could find her again when I
wanted her, about a quarter of a mile below a little steam-sawmill
that was on the bank.

Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on
it, "Phelps's Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two or
three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't
see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind,
because I didn't want to see nobody just yet--I only wanted to get the
lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there
from the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved
along, straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got
there was the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the "Royal
Nonesuch--three-night performance--like that other time. They had the
cheek, them frauds! I was right on him before I could shirk. He looked
astonished, and says:

"Hel-_lo!_ Where'd _you_ come from?" Then he says, kind of glad and
eager, "Where's the raft?--got her in a good place?"

I says:

"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace."

Then he didn't look so joyful, and says:

"What was your idea for asking _me?_" he says.

"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says
to myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I
went a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and
offered me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back
to fetch a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to
the boat, and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him
to shove him along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run,
and we after him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him
all over the country till we tired him out. We never got him till
dark; then we fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When
I got there and see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into
trouble and had to leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the
only nigger I've got in the world, and now I'm in a strange country,
and ain't got no property no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my
living'; so I set down and cried. I slept in the woods all night. But
what _did_ become of the raft, then?--and Jim--poor Jim!"

"Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool
had made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the
doggery the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every
cent but what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last
night and found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole
our raft and shook us, and run off down the river.'"

"I wouldn't shake my _nigger_, would I?--the only nigger I had in the
world, and the only property."

"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him
_our_ nigger; yes, we did consider him so--goodness knows we had
trouble enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat
broke, there warn't anything for it but to try the 'Royal Nonesuch'
another shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn.
Where's that ten cents? Give it here."

I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to
spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all
the money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He
never said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says:

"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done
that!"

"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?"

"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the
money's gone."

"_Sold_ him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was _my_ nigger, and
that was my money. Where is he?--I want my nigger."

"Well, you can't _get_ your nigger, that's all--so dry up your
blubbering. Looky here--do you think _you'd_ venture to blow on us?
Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you _was_ to blow on us--"

He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes
before. I went on a-whimpering, and says:

"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow,
nohow; I got to turn out and find my nigger."

He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering
on his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says:

"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll
promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you
where to find him."

So I promised, and he says:

"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, he
started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun
to study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so
he was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out
of the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says:

"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and
he lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to
Lafayette."

"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this
very afternoon."

"No you won't, you'll start _now_; and don't you lose any time about
it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue
in your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble
with _us_, d'ye hear?"

That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I
wanted to be left free to work my plans.

"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you
want to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim _is_ your
nigger--some idiots don't require documents--leastways I've heard
there's such down South here. And when you tell him the handbill and
the reward's bogus, maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him
what the idea was for getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him
anything you want to; but mind you don't work your jaw any _between_
here and there."

So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but
I kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him
out at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile
before I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards
Phelps's. I reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without
fooling around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these
fellows could get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd
seen all I wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them.

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.

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.

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

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

"No! Where?"

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

"Yes."

"What did you think the vittles was for?"

"For a dog."

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

"Why?"

"Because part of it was watermelon."

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

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

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

"Ready?"

"Yes," I says.

"All right--bring it out."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

"Yes."

"Well, then."

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

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

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

Tom says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

I hunched Tom, and whispers:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Does _who_ know us?"

"Why, dis-yer runaway nigger."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you sing out?"

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

"Not a word?"

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

"Did you ever see us before?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do we want of a saw?"

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

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

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

I says:

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

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

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

"For what?" I says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Borrow a shirt, too."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Can't nobody _read_ his plates."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tools?" I says.

"Yes."

"Tools for what?"

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

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

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

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

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

"A couple of case-knives."

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

"Yes."

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

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

"I don't know."

"Well, guess."

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

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

"_Jim_ don't know nobody in China."

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

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

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

"How long will it take, Tom?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Duke and King spend a few days plotting how to recover their fortunes. Soon, they reach a village named Pikesville. The King leaves and tells the Duke and Huck to follow him if he does not return by midday. After he fails to reappear, they go to find him, leaving Jim with the raft. Huck and the Duke search for quite some time, and finally find the King in a tavern. Soon, both the Duke and King are drunk. Huck sees his chance and runs straight back to the raft, but when he arrives Jim is gone. A young man on the road tells him Jim, a runaway slave, was just captured and sold to the Phelps family, down the road. Huck realizes that in an effort to make some money, the King had snuck back to the raft while he and the Duke had been searching for him, took Jim, sold him for forty dollars, and returned to the town to drink. Huck sits down and contemplates his next move. He is torn between his friendship for Jim and his belief that helping a runaway slave is a sin. Huck finally writes a letter to Miss Watson explaining where Jim is. Not quite satisfied, he thinks about it some more, and, in one of the most dramatic scenes in the novel, rips apart the letter saying, "All right, then, I'll go to hell!" Huck starts walking to the Phelps's farm, but encounters the Duke along the way. The Duke is posting advertisements for the Royal Nonesuch, which the two men are planning to perform again. When he sees Huck, the Duke gets extremely nasty and is afraid Huck will warn the townspeople. Next, he lies to Huck and tells him Jim was sold to a farm several days away and threatens Huck in order to keep him silent. Huck promises not to say a word, and hopes he will never have to deal with men such as the Duke and King ever again. Chapter 32 Huck decides to trust his luck, and walks directly up to the front door of the Phelps's farm. He is quickly surrounded by about fifteen hound dogs, which scatter when a large black woman chases them away. Aunt Sally emerges and hugs Huck, saying "It's you, at last! - ain't it?" Entirely surprised, Huck merely mutters "yes'm." Aunt Sally drags Huck into the house and starts to ask him why he is so late. Not sure how to respond, Huck says the steamboat blew a cylinder. The woman asks if anyone was hurt, to which Huck replies, "No'm, killed a nigger." Before he has a chance to answer any more questions, Silas Phelps returns home after picking up his nephew at the wharf. Aunt Sally hides Huck, pretends he is not there, then drags him out and surprises Silas. Silas does not recognize Huck until Aunt Sally announces, "It's Tom Sawyer!" Huck nearly faints from joy when he hears his friend's name and realizes Aunt Sally is Tom's aunt. Over the next two hours, Huck tells the family all about the Sawyer's and entertains them with stories. Soon, he hears a steamboat coming down the river, and realizes Tom is probably on the boat, since the family was expecting him. Eager to meet his friend and keep himself safe, Huck tells Aunt Sally and Silas that he must return to town to fetch his baggage, quickly explaining they need not accompany him. Chapter 33 Huck meets Tom Sawyer on the road and stops his carriage. Tom is frightened, thinking Huck is a ghost, but Huck reassures him and they settle down to catch up. Huck tells Tom what has happened at the Phelps's, and Tom thinks about how they should proceed. He tells Huck to return to the farm with his suitcase, while Tom returns to town and begins his trip to the Phelps's again. Huck arrives back at the Phelps house, and soon thereafter, Tom arrives. The family is excited because they do not get very many visitors, so they make Tom welcome. Tom makes up a story about his hometown and then suddenly and impudently kisses Aunt Sally right on the mouth. Shocked at his behavior, she nearly hits him over the head with her spinning stick, until Tom reveals that he is Sid Sawyer, Tom's brother. Next, Silas tells the family that their new slave Jim warned him about the Royal Nonesuch, and that he took it upon himself to inform the rest of the town. Silas figures the two cheats Jim spoke of will be ridden out of town that night. In a last minute attempt to warn the Duke and King, Huck and Tom climb out of their windows, but they are too late. They see the two men being paraded through the street covered in tar and feathers. Observing the scene, Huck remarks that human beings can be awfully cruel to one another. Chapter 34 Tom and Huck brainstorm ways to break Jim out of his prison. Huck plans to get the raft, steal the key to the padlock, unlock the door and then float down the river some more. Tom claims that plan is too simple and would work too well. Tom's plan is much more elaborate and stylish, and takes a great deal longer to implement. The boys go to the hut where Jim is being kept and search around. Finally, Tom decides that the best way, or at least the way that will take the longest, is to dig a hole for Jim to climb out of. The next day, he and Huck follow the black man who is delivering Jim's food. Jim recognizes Huck and Tom and calls them by name, but both boys pretend not to hear. When he has a chance, Tom tells Jim that they are going to dig him out. Jim is so happy he grabs Tom's hand and shakes it. Chapter 35 To create as fantastical a story and game as possible, Tom tries to determine how to make Jim into a real prisoner before his daring escape. He decides that he and Huck will have to saw off the leg of Jim's bed in order to free the chain, send him a knotted ladder made of sheets, give him a shirt to keep a journal on, and get him some tin plates to write messages on and throw out the window. To top it off, Tom tells Huck that they will use case-knives to dig Jim out, rather than the much quicker and more appropriate picks and shovels.

This section of the novel dramatically forces Huck to finally decide what he believes about slavery, and, as such, solidify his own morality. The most powerful scene occurs when Huck writes a letter to Miss Watson explaining where Jim is, only to tear it up, accept his fate no matter what the consequence of following his conscience, and set out to free Jim.  Huck is willing to sacrifice his soul for Jim's freedom, showing a tremendous amount of personal growth. This scene indicates how his relationship with Jim has changed over the course of the journey downriver, from companion, to respected friend, to the only family Huck will acknowledge. Huck decides to free Jim after remembering all the times Jim protected and cared for him, something which no one else has ever done for Huck. Therefore, there is bitter irony in Huck's story about the steamship cylinder exploding. Huck concocts the tale as an excuse for arriving in town so much later than expected, and when asked if anyone was hurt, he replies "No'm, killed a nigger." Aunt Sally is relieved to hear that no white people where hurt or killed, and does not care that a black person died. In the beginning of the book, the reader could easily attribute racist attitudes to the culture and time, forgiving the speaker for his or her ignorance, but after being introduced to Jim, the reader is unable to maintain that distance. Thus, it is surprising to hear Huck make such a racist and hypocritical off handed comment, but perhaps he is simply speaking in a way he thinks Aunt Sally would relate. In this section, Twain's writing style also returns to that of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom's return signifies that logical thinking will disappear, and an excessive sense of adventure and fantasy will take over. Huck quickly takes a backseat when Tom's unlimited creativity is released upon the Phelps home. Tom's willingness to steal a slave is surprising to Huck. It is somewhat of a surprise to the reader too, considering the long moral journey Huck experience to decide he would risk hell for his friend.  Thus, Huck questions Tom's motives, and finally concludes it is simply Tom's juvenile love for adventure that is spurring him on. The reader must recognize this as a false assumption. Tom has never committed a true crime with serious moral repercussions, and is thus unlikely to do so now. As the reader discovers in later chapters, Tom knows that Jim is already free, although Jim is unaware. Therefore, Tom knows he and Huck aren't breaking the law, but keeps this information from Huck so he will continue to play the prisoner game.