HUCK CHAPTER PRESENTATIONS SUMMARIES & QUOTES

Fowler, P. 2

CHAPTER 1

Huck and Tom getting the money they find in the cave, Widow Douglas takes guardianship of Huck and tries to civilize him, they are trying to give him a religious education (praying, thanking/listening to God) “…allowed she would sivilize me, but it was rough living in the house all the time” (1)

CHAPTER 2

Huck and Tom play a trick on Jim. Jim is a celebrity amongst the slaves. The “Tom Sawyer Gang” forms. They are going to be a gang that robs and murders people (keep women prisoners) “Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches” (6)

CHAPTER 3

Miss Watson tries to explain prayers to Huck. Rumor that Huck’s Pa has been found dead, but it later turns out to be a woman dressed as a man. The gang disbands after no robbing or murdering actually happens. Huck tells the reader about game they play where they raid picnics and pretend they are raiding a caravan of Arabs and Spaniards. “I went and told the widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for it was “spiritual gifts”. This was too many for me…” (11)

CHAPTER 4

Huck going to school and accepting his religious and school education. He sees the boot with the cross in the snow, gets Judge Thatcher to take control of the money he has. Jim has the oracle ox hairball and tells Huck that there are two angels surrounding Pa (one good, one bad), but that Huck is safe for right now. Pa is in Huck’s room.

“I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the new ones too, a little bit” (15)

CHAPTER 5

Pa returns to see Huck, and is not very impressed by his clothes, and education. Pa goes to the Judge to get the money back, after Huck tells him he is not really rich (even though he technically is, but Thatcher has control of the money). Pa says he is trying to change, so the new judge takes him in and helps him. Pa then later gets drunk and goes back to normal. Thatcher claims the only real way Pa will be reformed is with a shotgun. “I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better’n what he is” (19)

CHAPTER 6

Pa then sues for custody of Huck, taking him away from Miss Watson and Widow Douglas. Pa tells Huck he cannot go to school, but he keeps going. Pa then kidnaps Huck and takes him to a cabin in the woods, away from everyone else. “It was ‘lection day, and I was just about to go and vote, myself, if I warn’t too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a state in this country where they’d let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I’ll never vote again” (37)

CHAPTER 7

Escape of Huck to Jackson’s Island “I wish Tom Sawyer was there. I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches” (43)

CHAPTER 8

After Huck has successfully staged his death in the cabin he was on his way to Jackson island. He starts living there by building a fire, catching food etc... Huck wakes one day to loud boom. He sits up to try to listen and he hears it again. Huck makes his way to the side of the island where he can see the river. On the river is a large ship with Tom, Pap, The judge, Bessie, Joe, and aunt Polly along with many other town citizens. As this is happening he finds a loafs of bread floating down the river, Huck thinks that someone was praying for him to find it so it must have come true. Time goes on and he stumbles upon a fire in the woods. he becomes scared and flees from the fire, going towards the other side of the island and sleeps in the thick woods. As days past Huck crosses over to eat food and make a fire when he thinks to himself that he should check out the fire he saw a while back. He sneaks up to the fire finding a man sleeping next to it. Upon further inspection he realizes that the man is Jim. They talk for a while and find out that Jim ran away because he was going to be sold for 800 dollars in New Orleans. They were glad for each others company.

"When we was ready to shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with a quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good ways off." -Pg. 58

CHAPTER 9

Huck and Jim are living their lives on the island and begin to explore more of it. They discover a nearby cave in very dense woods. They make this place a safe spot and hide the canoe nearby. When a storm rolls in they take cover in the cave until it is over. When the storm is all over they go out from the cave to find that the river is flooded due to the large amount of rain. They continue to explore the island but this time by canoe The two look down the river to find a house floating down there way. Inside the house they find a dead man who has been shot. Jim tells Huck not to look because he doesn't think he should see his face but Huck didn’t want to look anyway. The two loot what they can from the house and send the canoe back towards the island. Now that it was midday Huck made Jim get on the floor of the canoe so the people in town don’t see him. They make there way up river an land on the island to end the chapter.

“ I didn’t look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rages over him, but he needn’t done it”

CHAPTER 10

Jim and Huck wake up the next day and Jim doesn’t want to talk about the dead body. He knew that there would be bad luck because the day before Huck touched the skin of a snake. The two of them search the body and find $8.00. A couple days later, Huck pulls a prank on Jim by putting a dead snake in his bed to scare him. However, the snake’s “mate” came over and laid in Jim’s bed as well, so when he sat down the snake bit him. He drinks some whiskey to help ease the pain. Jim recommends that Huck should go back into town dressed as a girl to find out what new news is going on. So Huck dresses up as a girl and knocks on a 40 something year old woman’s door.

“And he said that handling a snakeskin was such awful bad luck that we hadn’t got to the end of it yet.”

CHAPTER 11

Huck is said to be dead in chapter 11 but he is actually on the run out of town. Huck gets taken in by a woman for a time and he goes under two different fake female names and almost gets caught in his lie when the woman asks about the different names. Huck’s father is suspected of murdering him at first. Then the town’s people learn that Jim the slave has gone missing. The town then blames Jim for the murder and puts a $300 bounty on him to be found. The town also puts a $200 bounty on Papa Finn to have him found. Pa goes and asks the judge for money to find Jim and takes the money to get drunk first before leaving town. He leaves town just before everyone wants to hang him, as he leaves he’s with two hostile looking men. Huck learns of this information and returns to the cave to tell Jim that they must leave at once. They got in the canoe and floated on down the river. ““Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain’t a minute to lose. They’re after us!”

CHAPTER 12

They build a wigwam and sail down the river for a few days, only traveling at night so nobody would see them. After a storm one night, they find a crashed steamboat (Walter Scott). They go onto the boat (to Jim’s objections), and on the wreck, Huck overhears two robbers threatening to kill a third so that he won’t “tell.” One of the two robbers manages to convince the other to let their victim be drowned with the wreck. The robbers leave. Huck finds Jim and says they have to cut the robbers’ boat loose to prevent them from escaping. Jim responds by telling Huck that their own raft has broken loose and floated away.

“Pap always said it warn’t no to harm to borrow things” (76)

CHAPTER 13

Huck and Jim head for the robbers’ boat. The robbers put some stolen items in their boat but leave in order to take some more money from their victim inside the steamboat. Jim and Huck take the robbers boat, but then Huck feels bad because he thinks he might one day be a murderer. Huck tells a riverboat watchman that there has been a crash down the river, and he goes to help. The robber’s boat is the sunk by Huck and Jim, who then keep going down the river. Later on they see the Walter Scott floating by, with no chance of anyone surviving. “I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain’t no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like it?” (82)

CHAPTER 14

Huck and Jim had found the truck that was stolen off of the wreck from the gang. Inside were tons of goods like seegars and reading books. Huck starts to talk about a king, King Sollernmun and had convinced Jim that all he had to do was talk and maybe start a war and he would then make a thousand dollars a month. When all of a sudden they were interrupted by the sound of steam boat wheel and went back to their conversation. Huck then proceeds to explain to Jim that Sollernmun went to this place called “harem” where he keeps hundreds of wives. After that Jim and Huck got into an argument about language and that other people like, Frenchman speak another language. The argument ended in a tie.

“I see it warn’t no use wasting words- you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.”

CHAPTER 15

Huck and Jim start to reach the Ohio River. One night, Huck, in the canoe, splits apart from Jim and the raft. Huck tries to go back to the raft but can not find it. Eventually, Huck finds Jim who is asleep on the raft. Jim is very happy to find out Huck is alright. Huck tries to convince Jim that he dreamt the whole separation. Eventually Jim sees all the items that had been collected on the raft while he was asleep. Jim gets mad at Huck for lying about being separated. Huck eventually apologizes. He feels bad about tricking Jim.

“My heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’t k’yer no mo’ what become er me en de raf’. En when I wake up en fine you back agin’, 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.”

CHAPTER 16

Huck is starting to feel bad about helping Jim, because he belongs to someone else. He also feels guilty that Jim is going to try steal his family back, because the children belong to someone else (meaning the white owner). They are also trying to find Cairo. Huck decides to turn Jim in, but decides against it when Jim tells him he is his only friend. A boat comes along that wants to search their raft for escaped slaves, but Huck makes up a story about smallpox being on the boat so they leave. He feels bad for lying to them, but also knows he would feel bad for turning Jim in. A steamboat crashes into the raft, breaking it and separating Huck and Jim. Huck is then washed ashore only to have a pack of dogs corner him. “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” (98)

CHAPTER 17

Huck meets the owners of the dogs (Grangerfords) and tells them his name is George Jackson. They think he is a spy for the Shepherdsons, and when he tells them he is not, they let him stay with them. He spends time with Buck (the younger son). Huck describes the house, he thinks it is beautiful but it is actually tacky. He also notes the art of the dead daughter Emmeline (who paints and writes poems about dead people). He also learns that some family members (both Grangerfords and Shepherdsons) have been killed by the family feuding. “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.’ ” (108).

CHAPTER 18

Huck is taken in by the Grangerfords. Huck spends about a page describing the patriarch, Col. Grangerford. We learn of a feud going on between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. One day, Buck and Huck are walking through the woods and they see a dude riding up on a horse. Buck tells Huck to jump into the bushes and Huck recognizes the boy as Harney Shepherdson. Buck takes a shot and misses and they run back to the house. Huck asks Buck why he wanted to kill Harney and Buck says because of the feud. Huck went to church with the Grangerfords and he found it peculiar how both families could sit side by side in church but couldn’t stand each other anywhere else. After church, Miss Sophia asked Huck to run back to church and grab her testament so he did and a piece of paper fell out that said “half past two” on it. He gave it to Miss Sophia and went back to whatever he was doing. Jack, Hucks slave, comes running and asks if he can show Huck a bunch of water moccasins. Huck says sure and follows him through the swamp, where Jim is. Jim says that after they split up he found the boat and has been fixing it up. Huck returns to the house. The next day Huck woke up and everyone was gone. Jack said Miss Sophia had run off with Harney Shepherdson. Huck walked up the river road a bit and saw 3 men shooting at 2 boys. 1 of the boys was Buck. They shoot at each other a bit and Buck and the other boy are killed. He ran in to the swamp and got Jim and they set off down the river again. “My nigger had a monstrous easy time, because I warn’t used to having anybody to anything for me.”

CHAPTER 19

Huck and Jim are back on the river, moving right along. They are so far away from civilization that a big of smoke won’t hurt, so they cooked some fish for breakfast. Throughout this journey, Jim and Huck are always in the middle of fog. They pass by steamboats and hear voices, but can never see them. And as superstitious as Jim is, he thinks that the voices are spirits, but Huck says that they are not spirits. One morning, they see two men running along the boat begging to be saved because they are being chased by dogs. Huck tells them to run around to cut off their scent by the dogs before he let them on the boat. One of the men was old, the other one was about 30 years old. Huck then asks them what trouble they caused, and the younger man had sold a paste that takes tarter from teeth, but takes enamel off as well (which is not good). The old man had to run away because he became known as a town drunk, similar to Pap. Then, the younger man declares that he is Duke of the boat because he is the eldest son of the “Duke of Bridgewater”. Then, after much scuffle on the boat, the old man declares him as the Dauphin, and the son of King Louis the 16 th and Mary Antoinette, which means that he is 600+ years old. Jim wants to call these people out as fakes, but Huck tells him not to. “If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.”

CHAPTER 20

The duke and dauphin take over the raft (and the beds). The duke convinces the dauphin that they should put on a Shakespeare play in the next town. They arrive only to find everyone is at a religious meeting. The dauphin tells the townspeople that he is a pirate looking to be reformed and will become a missionary. The crowd then donate money to his ‘worthy cause’. The duke starts working at the print store (while the owners/workers are at the religious meeting), and makes some money. He prints a wanted ad for the capture of Jim, that they will use if anyone questions them about why Jim is with them. They will make the people believe they have caught Jim and are returning him for the reward. Jim wants the dauphin to speak French (like Huck told him a dauphin would), but he says he cannot remember how to speak French. ""Now," says the duke,"after to-night we can run in the daytime if we want to. Whenever we can see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we captured him up the river." (page 144)

CHAPTER 21

The duke and dauphin practice the balcony scene from

Romeo and Juliet

Sherburn. after a night of heavy drinking. The duke practices Hamlet’s soliloquy (as well as mixing in some lines from

Macbeth

). The four of them visit a small town in Arkansas, where a drunken street fight leads to the death of a rowdy drunk man and the attempted lynching of "He see me, and rode up and says: "Whar'd you come f'm boy? You prepared to die?"" (152)

CHAPTER 22

The lynch mob go to Sherburn’s house, but he comes out with a rifle (he is standing on the roof of his porch). He lectures them on being cowards and the mob mentality that they have exhibited. He claims that nobody would dare lynch him during the day. The mob then leaves his house. Huck goes to the circus later on, but an actor pretends to be drunk and tries to ride a horse. Huck is terrified the man will be killed, and does not realize he is just acting. The duke and dauphin put on their performance, but only a dozen people actually come to watch. The next night they put on another play

The King’s Cameleopard or The Royal Nonesuch

with a sign that says no women or children allowed. “The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is – a mob; but they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers”

CHAPTER 23

It is the night of the play, and the audience is jam packed. The dauphin is wearing a costume that consists of body paint and wild accoutrements. The duke and dauphin end the show quickly, and the audience then gets upset that they have been conned into thinking this was a proper performance. Instead of getting mad, they tell everyone in town how amazing the performance was, so that they will also be conned/embarrassed by watching the show. They put on a third performance, but everyone from the last two nights shows come to get revenge. Jim is upset that the duke and dauphin are ‘rapscallions’ who rip people off, but Huck says that lots of people in history got where they are by being liars/thiefs. Huck knows the duke and dauphin are fakes, but does not tell Jim. Jim spends the night thinking about his family, and Huck realizes that Jim loves his family just like white men love theirs. Jim then tells a story about how he beat his daughter (Lizabeth) for not listening, but he did not realize she had gone deaf because of the scarlet fever. “Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en dumb – en I’d ben a-treat’n her so!” (167)

CHAPTER 24

The four of them travel by steamboat and meet a man who tells them about the Wilks family and how the father of three girls has passed away. He left his brother and the girls all his money and property. “Well if I ever struck anything like it, I’m a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race”

CHAPTER 25

The Duke, the King and Huck are lead to the house where Peter Wilks used to live and they meet their three ‘nieces’. The Duke and King see Peter in the coffin and start sobbing and praying, and soon everyone else is crying and making a big show of their sorrow. Then the king makes a speech, everyone leaves and he asks for Peter’s closest friends to come over for dinner. The king reads aloud the final letter written by Peter explaining where the money is and what property is left to the brothers, and they go down in the cellar and find the money. The kind and the duke count the money and come up $425 short of the amount in the letter and decide to put in the rest of the money from their own pocket. They decide to give the money to the girls to get rid of any suspicions at anyone may have. They announce it and everyone can’t stop thanking him and blessing him. The town doctor overhears the talking and finally makes an accusation that they are frauds based on the his horrible English accent, but no one believes the doctor. The girls don’t listen and instead give the King and the Duke all of their money and ask them to invest it, to prove their trust.

“The tears running down, and they busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give the next woman a show. I never see anything so disgusting” (175)

CHAPTER 26

The group decides to stay in Peter’s old house with all of the nieces. At dinner that night, Huck contradicts himself by telling stories about dead kings that go to church in two different places in England. He swears that he is telling the truth over a dictionary. Huck feels guilty that he let the duke and the king steal the money, so he decides that he is going to steal the money back, and then escape. When he is searching for the money in the king’s room, he hears footsteps and hides in the closet. He overhears the duke and the king talking about their plan of taking the gold and selling the house. When the two re-hide the gold, Huck sees where they put it, and as soon as they leave, Huck leaves the closet and takes the gold.

“That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would ‘a’ been a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed” (187).

CHAPTER 27

As Huck is walking downstairs with the gold, he hears more footsteps and runs into the room with Peter Wilks’ coffin. After he decides to hide the gold in the coffin, he hides behind the door. As the funeral starts, there is a lot of noise coming from the basement, which ends up just being a dog that caught a rat. As the undertaker nails the coffin closed, Huck is nervous because he isn’t sure whether or not someone has taken the gold out. The king says that he is going to go, because he church in England is in some trouble. The king sells off the girls’ slaves, while the duke is uneasy about the whole thing. The next day the duke and the king wake up Huck and interrogate him about the gold, to which Huck says that he saw the slaves that they sold carrying the gold.

“I’ve worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I’d just let it alone, dad fetch the whole business”(192)

CHAPTER 28

In the morning Huck finds Mary Jane crying in her room. She was upset after the incident with the slaves, and felt that the trip to England was ruined. Huck sees her pain and mentions that the slaves will be reunited within two weeks. After further questioning, Huck explains that the uncles are just con men looking to steal their inheritance. Huck has Mary promise to go to Mr. Lothrop’s and wait until late at night so that Huck and Jim can get away. She would know they got away if Huck didn't show up at eleven that night. Before Mary goes, Huck gives her a note explaining where he hid the inheritance money. After Mary leaves, Huck runs into Susan and the harelip (Joanna) and tells them that Mary went over the river to care for a sick friend. The girls start to get suspicious but Huck tricks them into thinking it was a new illness. The real uncles showed up at the auction later that afternoon. “Well, I says to myself at last, I’m a-going to chance it; I’ll up and tell you the truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of pwder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to” (167)

CHAPTER 29

An older man and a younger man, arrive claiming to be Harvey and William Wilks, the real brothers, of Peter Wilks. The King insists they are frauds, but some of the townspeople start to wonder. At the tavern, Doctor Robinson states that if they are really related to the late Peter Wilks, the king won't mind getting the bags of gold and giving it to the doctor for safe keeping until the townspeople determine who is who. The King, thinking quickly, tells Doctor Robinson that he would give him the gold if he could but he doesn't have it; he says that the slaves stole it. He then continues to tell his elaborate story and the old man claiming to be Harvey Wilks tell his story. The lawyer Levi Bell asks to see samples of everyone's handwriting; from that, he can tell that the King and the Duke are frauds. The King says the test is unfair, so one of the "real brothers" asks the King if he knows what was tattooed on Peter's breast. The King says it was an arrow, but the man claiming to be Harvey Wilkes states it was "P-B-W". The townspeople now believe that all four men are frauds and it is suggested that they all dig up Peter’s corpse and take a look. If he doesn't have any of those marks, then they are going to lynch them all, including Huck.They dig up the grave and everyone is in shock to find the bag of gold. Huck runs for his life down the road. He finds a canoe and paddles to the raft. Just as Huck is overjoyed at being rid of the King and the Duke, he hears a noise. It is the King and the Duke paddling towards them.

“So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it did seem good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river and nobody to bother us” (215)

CHAPTER 30

The dauphin nearly strangles Huck out of anger at his desertion, but the duke stops him. The con men explain that they escaped after the gold was found. The duke and the dauphin each believe that the other hid the gold in the coffin to retrieve it later, without the other knowing. They nearly come to blows but eventually make up and go to sleep.

“Wait a minute duke-answer me this one question, honest and fair, if you didn’t put the money there, say it, and I’ll b’lieve you, and take back everything I said”

CHAPTER 31

They are all on the raft, trying to get as far away as they can, and the duke/dauphin try schemes along the way, none successful. Huck, duke, dauphin go into town, and have a fight at a tavern. Huck runs back to the raft, but finds out that Jim has been sold to Silas Phelps for $40. Huck realizes the dauphin sold Jim, and decides to write to Tom to have him tell Miss Watson what happened. Huck knows that she was going to sell Jim anyway, and that if his story gets out, he would be embarrassed about helping a slave. He cannot decide what to do, and decides this is God punishing him for helping a black man. He finally decides, after trying to pray and write to Miss Watson, that “All right then, I’ll go to hell!” and will “steal Jim out of slavery.” (214). The duke says that Jim is on a farm of Silas Phelps, but then changes his story and says he was sold to another town. He says Huck should make the three day trip to save Jim. “I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was 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” (225)

CHAPTER 32

Huck finds the Phelps house, and meets Sally (she thinks he is Tom Sawyer, her nephew). Huck tells her there was a problem with the boat, which is why he has been delayed. Sally asks if anyone was killed, and he says no, just a nigger. Huck is concerned that he will not be able to pretend to be Tom. He tells Sally he is going to get his luggage from the steamboat, but is actually going to try find Tom to tell him to keep up the charade.

CHAPTER 33

Huck finds Tom, who thinks he is a ghost and cannot believe he is actually alive. Tom agrees to help Huck get Jim back, but Huck is shocked that he would do something so against societies rules. He claims that “Tom Sawyer fell considerable in my estimation”. They go back to the Phelps farm, where Tom pretends to be William Thompson from Ohio. Tom then tries to kiss aunt Sally, who slaps him. He laughs and claims to be Tom Sawyer’s half brother, Sid Sawyer. They do not mention the runaway slave Jim. Huck sees the duke and dauphin being taken to be tarred and feathered, and notes that “human beings can be awful cruel to one another”. He decides that having a conscience is not good, because it makes you feel bad.

CHAPTER 34

Tom discovers that Jim is being held in a shed on the farm. Huck makes a plan to steal the key, save him, and run off at night. Tom makes fun of his simple plan, and comes up with a crazy plan that could kill them all. Huck cannot believe that Tom is going to ruin his reputation to save a slave. Jim recognizes Huck and Tom, but Tom tells his guard that it is just the work of witches. “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 yet here he was, without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to this business, and make himself a shame, and make his family a shame” (212)

CHAPTER 35

Tom is disappointed that Jim was not well guarded, and that he will invent obstacles to rescue Jim (because it is too simple right now). He tells Huck a bunch of things about plotting an escape and what they may need (a rope ladder, a moat, and a shirt on which Jim can keep a journal, presumably written in his own blood. Sawing Jim’s leg off to free him from the chains would also be a nice touch). But since they are pressed for time, they will dig Jim out with large table knives. Despite all the theft that the plan entails, Tom reprimands Huck for stealing a watermelon from the slaves’ garden and makes Huck give the slaves a dime as compensation.

“I called it borrowing, because that was what pap called it; but Tom said it warn’t borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing the prisoners; and prisoners don’t care how they get a thing so they get iit, and nobody don’t blame them for it either” (253)

CHAPTER 36

Tom and Huck decide the knives are not going to work to dig Jim out, so they use axes instead. Tom decides that Jim should write an etch about being held captive, and throw it for everyone to see. The next night Tom and Huck dig their way to Jim. Jim tells them that Silas and Sally have been visiting with Jim and praying for him. Jim is very confused about the elaborate plan the boys have invented, but follows them anyway. The guard (Nat) is convinced to bake a witch pie to help Jim, and Tom plans to bake a rope ladder into the pie. “Jim he couldn’t see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as Tom said” (262)

CHAPTER 37

Aunt Sally has noticed that some objects are missing from her house (shirts, sheets, candles) and starts taking her anger out on everyone in the house except for Huck and Tom. She thinks that it might be rats, so Tom and Huck plug up the ratholes before Uncle Silas can do it. They also put back the objects they had taken, which then confuses Aunt Sally. The boys also realize how hard it is baking their witch pie, but they manage to finish it and send it to Jim. “As soon as he was by himself he busted into the pie and hid the rope-ladder inside of his straw tick, and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the window hole” (271)

CHAPTER 38

Jim is told to scratch his coat of arms on the shed (Tom tells him too). He is basing all his actions on things he read in books. Tom’s coat of arms is really funny. He also writes declarations for Jim, but he is not happy the wall is made of wood and not stone. They decide to steal a millstone to etch on, but it is too heavy for them to write on. After all the work, Huck notes that Tom does a lot more supervising that actual work. Tom tells Jim to: tame a rattlesnake in his shake, and grow a flower and water it with his tears. Jim is starting to get annoyed with Tom because he is creating more work and trouble than is really necessary. He tells them that his great ideas are wasted on Jim. “Tom most lost all patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for himself, and yet he didn’t know enough to appreciate them, and they was just about wasted on him.” (278)

CHAPTER 39

Tom and Huck infest the Phelps house with rats and snakes (that they are putting in Jim’s shed, which now looks like a zoo). Silas has not heard from the plantation about Jim, so he decides to advertise the missing/runaway slaves in both New Orleans and St. Louis newspapers (which Miss Watson would read). Tom decides to write a threatening letter to warn the Phelps family of trouble, pretending to know about a gang that plans to steal Jim. Tom (the anonymous author of the letter) tells them that he has found religion, which is why he is writing to warn them about the gang. Tom also gives great details about how the gang plans to steal Jim. “The thing for us to do, is just to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it or not. Hain’t you got no principle at all?” (282)

CHAPTER 40

Huck and Tom are sent to bed because Sally and Silas are nervous about the letter. Fifteen farmers have then gathered at the house, and attack the shed after Huck has warned Jim (Tom is excited about the men). The boys run away, with Tom being shot in the leg by a stray bullet. They jump on the hidden raft, and head towards the island. Jim tells Tom he should see a doctor, since Tom would do if any of them were shot. Huck believes that Jim is “white inside” because of this statement. “I knowed he was white inside…” (290)