Summary: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

In a charm­ing vil­lage near the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er, two lads — Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, an impov­er­ished youth with a drunk­ard father, and Tom Sawyer, an imag­i­na­tive mid­dle-class lad, stum­ble upon a thief’s trea­sure. The new­found rich­es are deposit­ed in a bank for Huck, who is tak­en in by Wid­ow Dou­glas, a benev­o­lent woman with her sanc­ti­mo­nious sis­ter, Miss Wat­son. Despite Huck­’s ini­tial dis­con­tent with his new respectable life, he remains there to be part of Tom’s new crew. Nev­er­the­less, his ine­bri­at­ed father reap­pears demand­ing Huck­’s funds, lead­ing to a legal dispute.

A fresh mag­is­trate attempts to reform the father but to no avail. Enraged when Wid­ow Dou­glas cau­tions him to stay away, Huck­’s father seizes him and locks him up in a cab­in across the riv­er. Huck endures cap­tiv­i­ty and fre­quent thrash­ings until he pre­tends his demise, mak­ing a get­away to Jackson’s Island in the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er, where he comes across Jim, a flee­ing enslaved per­son. Despite reser­va­tions regard­ing the legal­i­ty and moral­i­ty of assist­ing a fugi­tive, Huck teams up with Jim on their expe­di­tion down­stream, encoun­ter­ing thieves, nar­row­ly evad­ing slave catch­ers, and sur­viv­ing a steam­boat crash. Huck lodges with the Granger­fords, a quar­rel­ing South­ern aris­to­crat­ic clan, while Jim mends the dam­aged raft. The pair lat­er res­cues two indi­vid­u­als pur­sued by out­laws, who assert to be a dis­placed Eng­lish noble­man and a long-lost French inheritance.

Despite their evi­dent deceit, Huck and Jim are com­pelled to accom­pa­ny them down the riv­er. The impos­tors com­mit numer­ous swin­dles, cli­max­ing in vend­ing Jim as an abscond­ed slave. Huck locates Jim and decides to lib­er­ate him, cul­mi­nat­ing in him being at the res­i­dence of Tom Sawyer’s rel­a­tive mis­tak­ing him for Tom. Tom shows up, pos­ing as his younger sib­ling, devis­ing a risky scheme to free Jim. Fol­low­ing unnec­es­sary com­pli­ca­tions, they lib­er­ate Jim, yet Tom gets shot in the process. Jim relin­quish­es his free­dom to nurse Tom, only for it to be revealed that Jim had been eman­ci­pat­ed through Miss Wat­son’s will. Weary of civ­i­liza­tion, Huck pon­ders embark­ing towards the West.

notification and explanation

The nar­ra­tive com­mences with a Cau­tion from a fig­ure named G. G., a high-rank­ing mil­i­tary offi­cer. The Cau­tion explic­it­ly states that read­ers should abstain from decod­ing any con­cealed sig­nif­i­cances, lessons, or sto­ry­lines with­in the sto­ry, fore­warn­ing of var­i­ous con­se­quences for those who do. Fol­low­ing the Cau­tion, there is an elu­cida­tive note inscribed by the Writer. The note elu­ci­dates the metic­u­lous por­tray­al of dialects in the saga, accu­rate­ly mir­ror­ing the dis­tinct con­ver­sa­tion­al styles of indi­vid­u­als resid­ing along the Mis­sis­sip­pi. Any read­er assum­ing that the per­sonas in the book are inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tions of sound­ing sim­i­lar is fun­da­men­tal­ly misinterpreted.

Chapter 1

The tale ini­ti­ates with the lead­ing char­ac­ter, Huck­le­ber­ry Finn, indi­cat­ing that he had made an appear­ance in anoth­er vol­ume, The Exploits of Tom Sawyer, by “Mr. Mark Twain.” Huck is uncon­cerned if the read­er is unac­quaint­ed with him and admits that Twain’s pri­or book was gen­er­al­ly fac­tu­al, with a few “stretch­ers” or fab­ri­ca­tions, a preva­lent prac­tice among every­one except a hand­ful of ladies, includ­ing Tom’s Aunt Pol­ly and the Wid­ow Dou­glas. In the con­clu­sion of Tom Sawyer, Tom, and Huck stum­bled upon a trove of gold con­cealed by ban­dits in a cav­ern. The young­sters each pock­et­ed $6,000. Judge Thatch­er, a local jus­tice, lodged the finances in a trust that cur­rent­ly yields a dai­ly inter­est of one dol­lar. Huck was tak­en in by the Wid­ow Dou­glas, who endeav­ored to refine him. Nev­er­the­less, Huck chafed under the con­straints of respectabil­i­ty and abscond­ed, only to return as Tom assured him a spot in his fresh gang of rob­bers if he assent­ed to dwell with the Wid­ow. The Wid­ow Dou­glas is dis­con­cert­ed by her fail­ure to reform Huck, who finds her cus­toms, includ­ing pray­ing before meals and her efforts to edu­cate him about Moses, weari­some. Huck holds no fas­ci­na­tion for the bib­li­cal fig­ure as he’s deceased. Even though the Wid­ow dis­al­lows smok­ing, she per­mits snuff, an activ­i­ty she indulges in. Her sib­ling, Miss Wat­son, instructs Huck in spelling, and he learns to peruse. Huck feels sti­fled by the Wid­ow and Miss Wat­son’s per­pet­u­al rebukes. Defi­ant­ly he declares he’d opt to vis­it hell for a change of scene, to every­one’s aston­ish­ment. He resolves not to aspire for par­adise but refrains from divulging this to avoid fur­ther com­mo­tion. Upon learn­ing that Tom won’t be enter­ing heav­en, Huck feels relieved, desir­ing to stick with his chum. After a prayer led by Miss Wat­son one evening, Huck feels so for­lorn that he yearns for death. The night­ly fau­na sounds unset­tle him. Star­tled, he inad­ver­tent­ly slaugh­ters a spi­der, per­ceiv­ing it as an ill omen. Hear­ing a “me-yow” and respond­ing sim­i­lar­ly, Huck clam­bers out the win­dow to find Tom Sawyer await­ing him.

Chapter 2

Huck and Tom tip­toe through the Widow’s gar­den, but Huck­’s trip over a root noti­fies Jim, one of Miss Watson’s ser­vants. They strive to remain incon­spic­u­ous, but Huck­’s abrupt itch­ing betrays them. Jim ini­tial­ly swears to inspect the com­mo­tion but prompt­ly dozes off. Tom, eager for mis­chief, opts to teth­er Jim. Huck protests, thus Tom plays a jest by sit­u­at­ing Jim’s hat on a tree branch over­head and pur­loins can­dles from the kitchen. Lat­er, Jim attrib­ut­es the dis­placed hat to sor­cery, spin­ning a yarn that earns him renown amidst the ser­vant com­mu­ni­ty. He dons the nick­el left by Tom as a malev­o­lent tal­is­man, believed to rem­e­dy ail­ments. Huck cyn­i­cal­ly observes Jim’s inflat­ed ego fol­low­ing his new­found emi­nence. In anoth­er occur­rence, Tom and Huck, along­side a few com­rades, voy­age to a cav­ern. Here, Tom estab­lish­es a gang of rob­bers named “Tom Sawyer’s Crew,” and they all take a solemn vow. The pledge encom­pass­es a clause to elim­i­nate the house­hold of any­one who dou­ble-cross­es the gang. How­ev­er, they accom­mo­date Huck, who sole­ly has an occa­sion­al­ly present drunk­en sire, by let­ting him nom­i­nate Miss Wat­son instead. They also con­sent to abduct and retain indi­vid­u­als “ran­som,” albeit uncer­tain of its def­i­n­i­tion. Tom insin­u­ates it entails detain­ing cap­tives until death. Tom also asserts that female detainees aren’t to be slain but charmed at the hide­out. When a home­sick mem­ber threat­ens to dis­close their secrets, Tom appeas­es him with a nick­el. They unan­i­mous­ly agree to ren­dezvous, but not on Sun­days, due to reli­gious cus­tom. Huck returns home and slinks into bed just as the sun­light emerges.

Chapter 3

Miss Wat­son reproach­es Huck for soil­ing his nov­el attire and endeav­ors to impart to him the con­cept of prayer. When his sup­pli­ca­tions remain unac­knowl­edged, he relin­quish­es it, gar­ner­ing crit­i­cism from Miss Wat­son. Wid­ow Dou­glas, how­ev­er, expounds that prayer revolves around spir­i­tu­al endow­ments like aid­ing oth­ers altru­is­ti­cal­ly. Unable to dis­cern the virtues of these endow­ments, Huck choos­es to aban­don the top­ic. The con­flict­ing por­tray­als of God by the two women per­plex Huck into believ­ing there exist two deities, and he aspires to adhere to Wid­ow Dou­glas’s God, despite ques­tion­ing his own right­eous­ness. Rumors begin to cir­cu­late about the pre­sumed demise of Huck­’s sire, absent for a year. A car­cass of a ‘tat­tered ‘indi­vid­ual is dis­cov­ered in the riv­er, spark­ing dis­cus­sions that it might be Huck­’s father. At first, Huck expe­ri­ences a sense of relief since his father was a cru­el drinker. It’s only lat­er that he real­izes the body belongs to a woman dis­guised as a man, caus­ing him to fret about his father’s poten­tial come­back. Fol­low­ing a month with Tom’s group, the boys, Huck includ­ed, opt to depart due to the lack of authen­tic theft and vio­lence. Huck reflects on an intri­cate game Tom con­coct­ed involv­ing a pre­tend pro­ces­sion of Arabs and Spaniards. The game con­clud­ed dis­ap­point­ing­ly when it turned out to be a Sun­day school pic­nic instead of a car­a­van. The boys’ raid on the pic­nic only results in some dough­nuts and jam, along­side a heap of trou­ble. After anoth­er futile attempt at rub­bing old lamps and rings to sum­mon a genie, as rec­om­mend­ed by Tom, Huck deduces that most of Tom’s sto­ries are inventions.

Chapter 4

Grad­u­al­ly, Huck adjusts to his new life and even starts excelling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. One crisp morn­ing, he notices boot prints in the snow near his res­i­dence. The heel impres­sion bears the sym­bol of two crossed nails, a mark intend­ed to fend off evil. Rec­og­niz­ing this sym­bol imme­di­ate­ly, Huck has­tens to Judge Thatch­er and sells him his for­tune, the mon­ey he and Tom stum­bled upon in their pre­vi­ous escapade that the Judge was look­ing after, for a soli­tary dol­lar. In the evening, Huck seeks out Jim, who flaunts pos­sess­ing a siz­able, mys­ti­cal ox’s hair­ball. Huck con­fides in Jim about stum­bling upon his father’s foot­prints and his inquis­i­tive­ness regard­ing his father’s motives. To prompt the hair­ball to “speak,” Jim requests pay­ment, and Huck hands over a coun­ter­feit quar­ter. Jim then con­veys that Huck­’s father is being swayed by two angels, one black and one white, one malev­o­lent and one vir­tu­ous. The out­come of this con­flict remains uncer­tain, but Huck­’s secu­ri­ty is guar­an­teed for the time being. Accord­ing to the hair­ball, Huck will encounter both ela­tion and sor­row, mar­ry a des­ti­tute woman suc­ceed­ed by a pros­per­ous one, and steer clear of the water as it’s proph­e­sied to be the cause of his demise. That same night, Huck comes face-to-face with his father in his quarters.

Chapter 5

Pap, a fright­en­ing fig­ure in his late for­ties, sports a sick­en­ing­ly pal­lid com­plex­ion. Upon see­ing Huck­’s for­mal gar­ments, he ques­tions if Huck now deems him­self above him and vows to hum­ble him. He also warns Wid­ow Dou­glas to cease med­dling in his affairs, express­ing rage over the fact that Huck is the first lit­er­ate indi­vid­ual in their fam­i­ly. When inquired about Huck­’s wealth and informed there is none, Pap accus­es Huck of deceit. Sub­se­quent­ly, he seizes a dol­lar from Huck, obtained from Judge Thatch­er, to pur­chase liquor. The next day, ine­bri­at­ed, Pap con­fronts Judge Thatch­er demand­ing Huck­’s mon­ey. The Judge and Wid­ow Dou­glas attempt but fail to secure Huck­’s cus­tody after the town’s new judge oppos­es sep­a­rat­ing a father and son. Pap’s intox­i­cat­ed mis­con­duct sub­se­quent­ly lands him behind bars. The new judge, aim­ing to reform him, wel­comes Pap into his abode. Nonethe­less, the judge and his wife’s emo­tion­al and preachy approach­es scarce­ly make an impres­sion. Despite Pap pledg­ing with teary eyes to rec­ti­fy his ways, he swift­ly relaps­es into drunk­en­ness. The judge con­se­quent­ly con­cludes that the sole method to reform Pap might involve coer­cion, employ­ing a shotgun.

Chapter 6

Pap ini­ti­ates legal pro­ceed­ings against Judge Thatch­er to acquire Huck­’s wealth and intim­i­dates Huck to attend school. Despite the threats, Huck per­sists with his stud­ies, part­ly to vex Pap. Pap indulges in peri­od­ic bouts of alco­holism, and one day he seizes Huck, con­fin­ing him in a seclud­ed cab­in in the woods on the Illi­nois shore. While Pap is out­side, Huck chances upon an old saw and devis­es an escape plan from both his father and Wid­ow Dou­glas by fash­ion­ing a hole in the cab­in wall. How­ev­er, Pap returns just as Huck is on the brink of secur­ing his free­dom. Pap express­es dis­dain for Judge Thatch­er for delay­ing court pro­ceed­ings, imped­ing him from obtain­ing Huck’s for­tune. Even though the odds of acquir­ing the mon­ey are in his favor, Pap appre­hends los­ing cus­tody of Huck. He con­tin­ues to rant about a bira­cial indi­vid­ual resid­ing in the town, express­ing abhor­rence that the indi­vid­ual holds vot­ing priv­i­leges in Ohio and can’t be law­ful­ly enslaved until spend­ing six months in Mis­souri. Even­tu­al­ly, Pap awak­ens from a drunk­en stu­por, bran­dish­ing a knife at Huck and dub­bing him the “Angel of Death,” but ceas­es when he col­laps­es. Armed with a rifle, Huck keeps a vig­i­lant watch over his uncon­scious father.

Chapter 7

Unaware of his pri­or drunk­en rage, Pap instructs Huck to sur­vey the riv­er for any ensnared fish. Huck chances upon an unat­tend­ed canoe on the riv­er, which he con­ceals in the woods. With Pap away for the day, Huck exe­cutes his get­away scheme from the cab­in, stock­ing it with pro­vi­sions, uten­sils, and oth­er valu­ables. He cun­ning­ly con­ceals the exit he craft­ed in the wall then heads out to hunt a wild pig. To stage a con­vinc­ing cha­rade, Huck uti­lizes an ax to shat­ter the cab­in door, lets pig blood pool on the floor, and arranges the scene to imply a vio­lent bur­glary result­ing in his demise. He then retreats to the canoe, await­ing moon­rise for his voy­age to Jack­son’s Island. Drift­ing off momen­tar­i­ly, he awakes to Pap row­ing past. Once clear, he dis­creet­ly sets off down­stream, arriv­ing at Jack­son’s Island with­out attract­ing notice.

Chapter 8

The next day, a fer­ry packed with locals, includ­ing Pap, Judge Thatch­er, his daugh­ter Bessie, Tom Sawyer, and his aunt, along with a hand­ful of Huck’s pals, sail past Jack­son Island. They’re on the look­out for Huck, whom they believe has been slain. To locate his body, they shoot can­non­balls into the water and drop bread loaves filled with mer­cury. From his covert spot, Huck appro­pri­ates a loaf and savors it, but feels regret­ful that his absence is caus­ing anguish to Wid­ow Dou­glas and oth­ers who care for him. In the ensu­ing days, Huck rel­ish­es tran­quil seclu­sion on the island, sub­sist­ing on berries and fish, with the free­dom to smoke as he desires. Nights are spent tal­ly­ing fer­ry­boats and gaz­ing at the serene riv­er. On the fourth day, he for­ays out and to his joy, chances upon Jim. Ini­tial­ly mis­tak­ing Huck for a specter, Jim is relieved to have com­pa­ny on the island but sur­pris­es Huck by dis­clos­ing he’s elud­ing pur­suers. Jim had over­heard Miss Wat­son con­tem­plat­ing vend­ing him to a slave trad­er for $800, result­ing in sep­a­ra­tion from his fam­i­ly. Jim elect­ed not to await her deci­sion. The two engage in dia­logues about super­sti­tions and Jim’s thwart­ed ven­tures, most of which turn out to be decep­tions. Despite set­backs, Jim remains unde­terred as he believes his hairy arms and chest sig­ni­fy forth­com­ing wealth, in line with his superstitions.

Chapter 9

Huck and Jim trans­port their canoe and sup­plies into a com­modi­ous cave on the island as a prospec­tive refuge from intrud­ers. Jim antic­i­pates a storm, which prompt­ly mate­ri­al­izes, com­pelling them to seek refuge in the cave. A swollen riv­er car­ries a house, drift­ing past their island. Inside the house, Jim and Huck stum­ble upon a gen­tle­man, shot in the back. Jim pro­tects Huck from observ­ing the man’s “grue­some” coun­te­nance. They gath­er some belong­ings from the house­boat before Huck instructs Jim to con­ceal him­self in the canoe’s base for pri­va­cy, ensur­ing their secure return to the island.

Chapter 10

Huck pon­ders the deceased man, but Jim warns against such reflec­tions, stat­ing they bring ill luck. Jim believes Huck has already drawn mis­for­tune by han­dling a shed snake skin. In line with Jim’s advice, mis­for­tune strikes when Huck­’s jest goes awry. He places a deceased rat­tlesnake near Jim’s rest­ing place, and its mate appears, bit­ing Jim. Jim’s leg swells up but even­tu­al­ly recov­ers. Lat­er, Huck ven­tures to the shore for updates, dis­guised as a female with a gown they had obtained from the house­boat. He prac­tices his fem­i­nine role before head­ing to the Illi­nois shore. Huck encoun­ters a lady, around forty years old, in a run­down, derelict hut. She appears unfa­mil­iar with the vicin­i­ty, which reas­sures Huck as he knows she won’t rec­og­nize him. Nev­er­the­less, he remains cau­tious about uphold­ing his female facade.

Chapter 11

Huck gains entry into a local wom­an’s abode, intro­duc­ing him­self as “Sarah Williams” from Hook­erville. The chat­ter­a­tive lady brings up Huck­’s alleged homi­cide, men­tion­ing sus­pi­cions about his father and Jim. Pap, after squan­der­ing the judge’s funds on liquor instead of locat­ing Jim, emerges as the prime sus­pect and flees town before a mob can cap­ture him. A $200 reward is now on offer for Pap, while Jim faces a $300 boun­ty. Notic­ing smoke on Jack­son’s Island, the lady spec­u­lates that Jim might be hid­ing there and instructs her spouse to inves­ti­gate with a com­pan­ion and a firearm. Upon inquir­ing about Huck­’s name, he responds, “Mary Williams.” To rec­on­cile the incon­sis­ten­cy, he claims his full name to be “Sarah Mary Williams.” The lady tests Huck­’s legit­i­ma­cy by task­ing him to attempt to elim­i­nate a rat with a lead piece. His near-miss only deep­ens her sus­pi­cions. Even­tu­al­ly, she encour­ages him to dis­close his actu­al male iden­ti­ty, assur­ing him she would­n’t report a run­away appren­tice. Huck intro­duces him­self as George Peters, an inden­tured ser­vant to a harsh farmer. After test­ing his farm­ing knowl­edge, she per­mits him to depart, advis­ing him to seek her out, Mrs. Judith Lof­tus, if faced with any predica­ments. Back on the island, Huck stages a decep­tive bon­fire to divert poten­tial searchers. Has­ten­ing back to the cav­ern, he alerts Jim, insist­ing on their relo­ca­tion. They secure their pos­ses­sions and drift away on a raft dis­cov­ered dur­ing a flood.

Chapter 12

Huck and Jim con­struct a rudi­men­ta­ry abode on their raft, jour­ney­ing down the riv­er under the cov­er of dark­ness and remain­ing incon­spic­u­ous dur­ing day­light. The lumi­nous sights of St. Louis elude them on the fifth evening. They live com­fort­ably, procur­ing sus­te­nance through pur­chase, theft, or hunt­ing. Despite the need, they har­bor remorse about theft and opt to relin­quish some items as an eth­i­cal ges­ture of com­pen­sa­tion. Dur­ing a vio­lent storm, they chance upon a wrecked steam­boat. Despite Jim’s objec­tions, Huck opts to explore the wreck­age for spoils, seek­ing an exhil­a­rat­ing escapade akin to Tom Sawyer. On the steam­boat, Huck over­hears two felons schem­ing to elim­i­nate a third to pre­vent him from expos­ing their mis­deeds. Ulti­mate­ly, one felon per­suades the oth­er to per­mit the third man to per­ish with the sink­ing ves­sel. After the felons’ depar­ture, Huck locates Jim and insists on releas­ing the felons’ boat to thwart their escape. Jim star­tles Huck with the rev­e­la­tion that their own raft has drift­ed away.

Chapter 13

Huck and Jim approach the rob­bers’ water­craft. The ban­dits stash their pil­fered goods aboard the ves­sel and depart to acquire more loot from their vic­tims with­in the ship. Stealth­ily, Huck and Jim seize con­trol of the felons’ boat and drift away. A pang of con­science strikes Huck as he con­tem­plates the marooned felons, pon­der­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of trans­mut­ing into a male­fac­tor some­day. Upon locat­ing their raft, they pause for Huck to make his way ashore for assis­tance. Huck chances upon a fer­ry’s watch­man on land and con­vinces him that his kin­folk are strand­ed on the hulk of the steam­boat, Wal­ter Scott. He fab­ri­cates an elab­o­rate tale about his fam­i­ly’s plight to per­suade the watch­man to launch a res­cue mis­sion. Huck feels a sense of achieve­ment for his arti­fice, believ­ing the Wid­ow Dou­glas would have extolled his deed of aid­ing the “scoundrels and wastrels.” Sub­se­quent­ly, Jim and Huck scut­tle the felons’ boat and retire for the night. Mean­while, the wreck con­tin­ues its drift down­stream. Despite the fer­ry­man’s efforts to inspect the wreck­age, it becomes evi­dent the ban­dits did not survive.

Chapter 14

Huck and Jim stum­ble upon an assort­ment of items in the felons’ loot from Wal­ter Scott, includ­ing books, gar­ments, and cig­ars. While rest­ing in the woods, antic­i­pat­ing night­fall to resume their jour­ney, Huck reads from the uncov­ered books. They con­verse about their alleged adven­tures, with Jim express­ing his aver­sion to them due to the poten­tial haz­ards they pose to his life and lib­er­ty. Huck nar­rates sto­ries about mon­archs, derived from the books and his fab­ri­cat­ed tales, leav­ing Jim utter­ly amazed. The sole monarch Jim is acquaint­ed with is King Solomon; he deems him fool­ish for his res­o­lu­tion to divide a baby in two. Despite Huck­’s endeav­or, Jim remains unper­suad­ed. Huck also men­tions the dauphin, the descen­dant of the exe­cut­ed King Louis XVI of France — whom Huck mis­tak­en­ly refers to as the “dol­phin” and who is pre­sumed to be aim­less­ly roam­ing Amer­i­ca. Jim refus­es to acknowl­edge that French indi­vid­u­als do not speak Eng­lish, regard­less of Huck­’s expla­na­tions. Huck tries to rea­son with Jim but even­tu­al­ly concedes.

Chapter 15

As Huck and Jim draw near to the Ohio Riv­er, they become sep­a­rat­ed dur­ing a fog­gy evening. Huck is in a canoe and los­es his way in the dense fog, devi­at­ing from Jim and the raft. After drift­ing alone for some time, he even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ers Jim slum­ber­ing on the raft. To play a prank, Huck con­vinces Jim that he had hal­lu­ci­nat­ed their entire sep­a­ra­tion. Jim divulges his ‘vision,’ which he inter­prets as an alle­go­ry of their quest for free­dom. How­ev­er, Jim soon notices the clut­ter of debris and branch­es on the raft, evi­dence of its aim­less drift, and real­izes Huck duped him. He voic­es his ire at being hood­winked, espe­cial­ly after fret­ting over Huck­’s safe­ty. Suf­fer­ing from remorse, Huck sin­cere­ly apol­o­gizes, regret­ting his jest on Jim.

Chapter 16

Jim and Huck express appre­hen­sion about bypass­ing Cairo, a por­tal to the lib­er­at­ed states, owing to its prox­im­i­ty to the Ohio Riv­er. Huck grap­ples with guilt over abet­ting Jim’s flight from Miss Wat­son, his law­ful pos­ses­sor who treat­ed Huck kind­ly. Jim, how­ev­er, dreams of attain­ing free­dom in the lib­er­at­ed states, gar­ner­ing enough to secure his spouse and off­spring’s lib­er­ty or enlist­ing abo­li­tion­ists to eman­ci­pate them if their pro­pri­etors refuse. Upon spot­ting what they believe to be Cairo, Huck ven­tures ashore in a canoe, clan­des­tine­ly intend­ing to dou­ble-cross Jim. Upon hear­ing Jim affirm him as his exclu­sive com­pan­ion, Huck­’s deter­mi­na­tion weak­ens. Unex­pect­ed­ly, Huck comes across men desir­ing to exam­ine his raft for run­away slaves. He tricks them into believ­ing that his fam­i­ly, sup­pos­ed­ly infect­ed with small­pox, inhab­its the raft. Anx­ious about con­ta­gion, the men with­draw, direct­ing Huck to move down­stream and request help by pro­vid­ing false infor­ma­tion about his fam­i­ly’s ill­ness. Out of com­pas­sion, they depart leav­ing forty dol­lars. Feel­ing remorse­ful for deceiv­ing them about Jim, Huck com­pre­hends he would feel equal­ly remorse­ful if he had hand­ed Jim over, prompt­ing him to choose to dis­re­gard ethics in the future, opt­ing for con­ve­nience instead. While pro­gress­ing down­stream and pass­ing numer­ous towns, appre­hen­sion grows that they unin­ten­tion­al­ly missed Cairo through the mist. They pause for a break and opt to row upstream with their canoe, only to find it miss­ing by morn­ing. They attribute the dis­ap­pear­ance and their con­tin­u­al mis­for­tune to the snake­skin from Jack­son’s Island. Lat­er, their raft is wrecked by a steam­boat, and they nar­row­ly escape, though sep­a­rate­ly. On sol­id ground, Huck finds him­self cor­nered by a pack of hounds.

Chapter 17

Huck is res­cued from hounds by a gen­tle­man who intro­duces him­self as “George Jack­son.” Ini­tial­ly, his hosts spec­u­late if he belongs to the Shep­herd­son clan, but even­tu­al­ly rule out this pos­si­bil­i­ty. The lady of the res­i­dence instructs a lad, Buck, around Huck­’s age, to pro­vide him with dry gar­ments. Buck express­es ani­mos­i­ty towards the Shep­herd­sons and endeav­ors to share a puz­zle with Huck, who fails to grasp the con­cept of rid­dles. Buck urges Huck to stay with him, vow­ing an enjoy­able time. Mean­while, Huck invents an elab­o­rate sto­ry about his lack of parental care. Buck­’s fam­i­ly, the Granger­fords, extend a per­ma­nent invi­ta­tion for Huck to dwell with them. Huck naive­ly admires the dwelling and its humor­ous­ly flam­boy­ant decor, espe­cial­ly the inad­ver­tent­ly humor­ous sen­ti­men­tal art­works and vers­es of Emme­line, a deceased daugh­ter. As Huck set­tles into life with the Granger­fords, he pon­ders that “noth­ing could sur­pass” his cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in the hos­pitable domicile.

Chapter 18

Huck is impressed by Colonel Granger­ford, the pro­pri­etor of the estate, and his per­ceived sophis­ti­ca­tion. The colonel is an ami­able indi­vid­ual with vast land and over a hun­dred enslaved indi­vid­u­als. The prog­e­ny of the Granger­fords include Bob, Tom, Char­lotte, Sophia, and Buck. All are remark­ably attrac­tive. Buck endeav­ors to assas­si­nate a youth named Har­ney Shep­herd­son but falls short. Buck informs Huck that the Granger­fords and the Shep­herd­sons, a neigh­bor­ing fam­i­ly, are embroiled in a fam­i­ly quar­rel. The rea­son for the enmi­ty is for­got­ten, but two lives have been claimed in the pre­vi­ous year. The two war­ring fam­i­lies attend the same church, hold­ing onto their weapon­ry even dur­ing the ser­mon about broth­er­ly love. Sophia Granger­ford tasks Huck with fetch­ing a Bible from the church one day. She is ecsta­t­ic upon dis­cov­er­ing a note marked “Half-past two” with­in it. Sub­se­quent­ly, Huck­’s enslaved helper leads him deep into the swamp, claim­ing to show him some water moc­casins, where Huck unex­pect­ed­ly encoun­ters Jim. Jim shad­owed Huck the night of their ship­wreck but remained silent to evade cap­ture. Jim had con­front­ed some enslaved indi­vid­u­als to reclaim the raft, assert­ing its own­er­ship by his Cau­casian mas­ter. The fol­low­ing day, Huck learns that Sophia Granger­ford has eloped with Har­ney Shep­herd­son. In the woods, Huck chances upon Buck and anoth­er Granger­ford engaged in a gun­fight with the Shep­herd­sons. Both Granger­fords meet their demise. Dis­tressed, Huck rush­es to Jim and the raft, and they prompt­ly depart downstream.

Chapter 19

As Huck and Jim float down the riv­er, Huck encoun­ters two men ashore evad­ing trou­ble. He aids them by fer­ry­ing them fur­ther down the riv­er. The elder man is approx­i­mate­ly sev­en­ty, bald with facial hair, while the younger man is around thir­ty. Their attire is shab­by. Although strangers, they share sim­i­lar predica­ments. The younger man for­mer­ly ped­dled a harm­ful teeth-cleans­ing paste, prompt­ing his flight from an enraged mob. The elder man held a tem­per­ance revival gath­er­ing but had to flee upon dis­cov­ery of his alco­hol con­sump­tion. Lis­ten­ing to each oth­er’s nar­ra­tives, they opt to col­lab­o­rate, being mutu­al trick­sters. The younger man asserts he is a des­ti­tute Eng­lish noble, per­suad­ing Huck and Jim to serve him as though he were a monarch. The elder man then reveals him­self as the dauphin, the lost son of King Louis XVI of France. Huck and Jim are hence com­pelled to serve and address them as “Duke” and “Your Majesty.” Huck soon real­izes they are char­la­tans, but to pre­vent con­flict, he keeps his aware­ness to himself.

Chapter 20

The duke and dauphin ques­tion Jim’s poten­tial sta­tus as a fugi­tive slave, lead­ing Huck to invent a tale about his own aban­don­ment and the imper­a­tive noc­tur­nal jour­neys due to sus­pi­cions regard­ing Jim’s legal stand­ing. Despite a storm, Huck and Jim relin­quish their beds to the duo for the night. The sub­se­quent day, the duke con­vinces the dauphin to per­form a Shake­speare­an play in the upcom­ing town. Upon arrival, they dis­cov­er the town desert­ed for a sig­nif­i­cant reli­gious assem­bly in the woods. The dauphin dupes the crowd by por­tray­ing him­self as a reformed pirate turned evan­ge­list, gar­ner­ing over eighty dol­lars in con­tri­bu­tions and numer­ous kiss­es from the young ladies. While the town lies vacant, the duke seizes the oppor­tu­ni­ty by oper­at­ing the aban­doned print­ing press. He gar­ners near­ly ten dol­lars from print­ing assign­ments and adver­tise­ments. He also crafts a leaflet offer­ing a reward for Jim’s cap­ture. This enables them to jour­ney freely dur­ing the day, claim­ing to any inquir­ers that Jim is their cap­tive. Mean­while, Jim inno­cent­ly endeav­ors to engage the dauphin in French con­ver­sa­tion. How­ev­er, the self-pro­claimed French noble pre­tends to have for­got­ten his native tongue.

Chapter 21

Fol­low­ing a night of heavy drink­ing, the duke and the dauphin rehearse scenes from Shake­speare’s Romeo and Juli­et and Richard III on their raft. The duke endeav­ors to recite Ham­let’s “To be, or not to be” solil­o­quy, although his ren­di­tion is a mish­mash of lines from var­i­ous parts of Ham­let and even some from Mac­beth. Despite this, Huck admires the duke’s per­for­mance. Lat­er, they vis­it a drowsy Arkansas town inhab­it­ed by idle youths debat­ing over chew­ing tobac­co. Huck­’s por­tray­al of the town is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly humor­ous and pecu­liar. The duke pro­motes their the­atri­cal pre­sen­ta­tion, dur­ing which Huck wit­ness­es a dis­or­der­ly ine­bri­at­ed indi­vid­ual being shot by Sher­burn, a man he had offend­ed. The shoot­ing unfolds before the vic­tim’s daugh­ter, lead­ing to a gath­er­ing around the dying man before they depart with inten­tions to lynch Sherburn.

Chapter 22

An angry mob advances on Sher­burn’s abode, dam­ag­ing his front fence, but hasti­ly retreats upon Sher­burn appear­ing on his porch with a rifle. A tense silence ensues before Sher­burn rep­ri­mands them for their timid­i­ty and mob men­tal­i­ty. He asserts that in broad day­light, no one will dare to lynch him, effec­tive­ly dis­pers­ing the chas­tened mob. Lat­er, Huck attends a cir­cus, described as a daz­zling spec­ta­cle fea­tur­ing a quick-wit­ted clown. In one act, an actor feigns drunk­en­ness, strug­gling to remain astride a horse, much to the. audi­ence’s joy. Huck, on the oth­er hand, strug­gles to wit­ness the man appar­ent­ly in dan­ger. Lat­er on, the duke’s dis­play draws only twelve view­ers that evening, who taunt con­tin­u­ous­ly dur­ing the per­for­mance. Sub­se­quent­ly, the duke pro­motes anoth­er show, The King’s Cameleop­ard [Giraffe] or The Roy­al None­such, lim­it­ing entry to mature individuals.

Chapter 23

The Roy­al None­such pre­sen­ta­tion gar­ners a packed audi­ence. The Dauphin, garbed sole­ly in body paint and pecu­liar orna­ments, keeps the crowd enter­tained with laugh­ter. Nonethe­less, as the show con­cludes pre­ma­ture­ly, the audi­ence near­ly attacks the duke and the dauphin. Feel­ing ashamed, they opt to deceive the town into attend­ing the com­e­dy by prais­ing it. Con­se­quent­ly, the sec­ond night also wit­ness­es a full house. Expect­ing Avengers on the third night, the duke and Huck escape to the raft before the per­for­mance. Through­out three nights, they have earned $465. Jim is sur­prised by the roy­al duo’s “scoundrel” con­duct, which Huck jus­ti­fies by men­tion­ing ques­tion­able his­tor­i­cal instances of nobil­i­ty. Pre­fer­ring not to dis­close that the duke and the dauphin are impos­tors, Huck remains silent. While keep­ing watch at night, Jim mourns his wife and chil­dren. Despite appear­ing “unnat­ur­al” to Huck, he acknowl­edges that Jim cher­ish­es his fam­i­ly like any Cau­casian man would. A dis­tant sound reminds Jim of when he pun­ished his daugh­ter Liz­a­beth for not obey­ing his orders, unaware that scar­let fever had made her deaf. This rec­ol­lec­tion deeply upsets him.

Chapter 24

As the duke and dauphin plan to dupe anoth­er town, Jim express­es his appre­hen­sion about stay­ing hid­den and restrained on the raft. To find a mid­dle ground, the duke dis­guis­es Jim as an “Ail­ing Arab”, uti­liz­ing a the­atri­cal robe and face paint to ensure his safe­ty once the oth­ers depart. The Dauphin, attired dif­fer­ent­ly, aims for a grand entrance into the upcom­ing town with Huck, board­ing a near­by steam­boat. On the steam­boat, the dauphin meets a loqua­cious young man who nar­rates the sto­ry of a recent­ly deceased local, Peter Wilks. Wilks, hav­ing arranged his will to bequeath his estate to his dis­tant broth­ers in Eng­land, passed away before their arrival. The young man, en route to South Amer­i­ca, unknow­ing­ly fur­nish­es the dauphin with enough details about the Wilks fam­i­ly for exploita­tion. Upon reach­ing the town, the duke and dauphin mas­quer­ade as Wilk­s’s bereaved broth­ers, with the dauphin mim­ic­k­ing sign lan­guage. The entire cha­rade leaves Huck feel­ing pro­found­ly ashamed of humanity.

Chapter 25

The towns­peo­ple assem­ble at the Wilks abode as Wilk­s’s three nieces, weep­ing, greet the duke and the dauphin, pre­sum­ing them to be their long-lost uncles from Eng­land. The entire town also starts weep­ing. The scene dis­gusts Huck, who deems the dis­play as “repul­sive.” Accord­ing to Wilk­s’s let­ter, his nieces are to inher­it his house and $3,000, where­as his broth­ers are to receive an addi­tion­al $3,000 and prop­er­ty val­ued twice as much. After dis­cov­er­ing Wilk­s’s mon­ey in the basement—just as the let­ter had indicated—the duke and the dauphin tal­ly the mon­ey in pri­vate. Upon find­ing it to fall short of the antic­i­pat­ed $6,000 from the let­ter, they sup­ple­ment $415 of their own. They then pub­licly present the total sum to the Wilks girls, to the aston­ish­ment of the spec­ta­tors. How­ev­er, Doc­tor Robin­son, a close con­fi­dant of the late Wilks, accus­es the duke and the dauphin of being fraud­sters, cri­tiquing their poor­ly con­cealed accents. He implores Mary Jane, the eldest of the Wilks girls, to dis­miss the duo as impos­tors. In response, Mary Jane entrusts the dauphin with the $6,000 to man­age as he sees fit.

Chapter 26

The imposter king secures his lodg­ing at the Wilks’ res­i­dence. Dur­ing sup­per with Joan­na — the youngest Wilks sib­ling, dubbed “the hare-lip” due to a con­gen­i­tal con­di­tion, Huck­’s knowl­edge of Eng­land is test­ed. His inac­cu­ra­cies, such as claim­ing to hail from Sheffield and the pseu­do-king being a Protes­tant priest, accu­mu­late, lead­ing Joan­na to inquire whether he is fab­ri­cat­ing sto­ries. The elder sis­ters, Mary Jane and Susan, scold Joan­na for her dis­re­spect towards their guests, prompt­ing her imme­di­ate apol­o­gy. Huck is con­sumed with guilt at the thought of deceiv­ing the inno­cent sis­ters and resolves to retrieve their mon­ey. He enters the fraud­sters’ cham­ber to find the mon­ey but quick­ly con­ceals him­self upon their arrival. Though the duke is keen to depart the town at once, the false king per­suades him to stay until they have deplet­ed the fam­i­ly’s rich­es. Once they exit the room, Huck dis­cov­ers the $6,000 in gold, stash­es it in his sleep­ing nook, and clan­des­tine­ly departs in the dead of night.

Chapter 27

Huck con­ceals the mon­ey bag in Peter Wilk­s’s cof­fin, but Mary Jane’s entry, tear­ful, into the room obstructs him from retriev­ing it. His wor­ry esca­lates con­cern­ing the mon­ey’s des­tiny. Dur­ing the bur­ial, a dis­tur­bance from a dog in the base­ment dis­rupts the pro­ceed­ings. The under­tak­er departs briefly and returns after a dis­tinct “whack” noise from below, declar­ing to all that the dog had caught a rat. How­ev­er, Huck­’s anx­i­ety height­ens as he observes the under­tak­er seal the cof­fin with­out ver­i­fy­ing its con­tents, leav­ing the mon­ey’s fate uncer­tain. He pon­ders inform­ing Mary Jane via writ­ten cor­re­spon­dence once he leaves the town, propos­ing a re-open­ing of the cof­fin. The Dauphin, feign­ing escort­ing the Wilks girls to Eng­land, auc­tions off the estate and slaves, cul­mi­nat­ing in the sor­row­ful sep­a­ra­tion of a slave moth­er from her two sons, which dis­tress­es the Wilks women. Nonethe­less, Huck clings to the hope that the fam­i­ly will reunite once the impos­tors are unmasked. When the swindlers inter­ro­gate him about the miss­ing mon­ey, Huck adept­ly con­vinces them that the Wilks’ slaves abscond­ed with it.

Chapter 28

In wak­ing to find Mary Jane wail­ing over the slave fam­i­ly’s sep­a­ra­tion, Huck, moved by her sor­row, impul­sive­ly assures her of their immi­nent reunion. An ecsta­t­ic Mary Jane demands an expla­na­tion, plac­ing Huck in a dilem­ma as he is unac­cus­tomed to truth-telling under pres­sure. Nev­er­the­less, he divulges the truth to Mary Jane but requests her to stay at a friend’s abode until night­fall to facil­i­tate his escape, as Jim’s des­tiny is entwined with his. He also advis­es her to evade her “uncles” as they may sus­pect some­thing amiss from her inno­cent demeanor. Leav­ing her a note indi­cat­ing the mon­ey’s where­abouts, he departs, with Mary Jane pledg­ing to keep him in her prayers. Huck admits that though he nev­er encoun­ters Mary Jane again, her mem­o­ry often lingers. Short­ly after her depar­ture, Huck encoun­ters Susan and Joan­na and con­vinces them that their sis­ter went to vis­it an ail­ing friend. Intrigued, Joan­na ques­tions him, but he astute­ly silences them. Lat­er that day, an auc­tion of the fam­i­ly’s pos­ses­sions is abrupt­ly halt­ed by a com­mo­tion. Two men among the onlook­ers claim to be the authen­tic Har­vey and William Wilks.

Chapter 29

The gen­uine Har­vey Wilks, with an authen­tic Eng­lish pro­nun­ci­a­tion, recounts the adver­si­ties that obstruct­ed him and his silent sib­ling William: miss­ing bag­gage and a frac­tured arm that hin­dered William from uti­liz­ing sign lan­guage. Physi­cian Robin­son asserts that the duke and dauphin are deceivers and arranges a pub tri­al. The alleged rel­a­tives cast doubt when they can­not dis­play the $6,000 from the Wilks’ inher­i­tance. A legal advi­sor, a con­fi­dant of the deceased, exam­ines the duke, dauphin, and the real Har­vey by request­ing them to pro­vide hand­writ­ing exam­ples. The solic­i­tor com­pares these with ear­li­er let­ters from Har­vey, expos­ing the impos­tors. How­ev­er, the dauphin refus­es to acknowl­edge defeat, shift­ing blame to the duke for inten­tion­al­ly alter­ing his writ­ing. As William, who gen­er­al­ly tran­scribes for Har­vey, is unable to do so due to his injury, ver­i­fy­ing the gen­uine Wilks broth­ers’ iden­ti­ties becomes chal­leng­ing. Har­vey tries to clear the con­fu­sion by unveil­ing a tat­too on his broth­er’s chest and seek­ing the under­tak­er’s endorse­ment. Nev­er­the­less, dis­crep­an­cies arise between the dauphin and Har­vey’s por­tray­als of the tat­too, and the under­tak­er sur­pris­es every­one by assert­ing there was no tat­too. The crowd demands ret­ri­bu­tion against the four men, but the attor­ney pro­pos­es a grave exam­i­na­tion for the tat­too. The throng drags the four claimants and Huck to the bur­ial ground. They locate the $6,000 in gold in the cas­ket, caus­ing com­mo­tion. Amidst the chaos, Huck slips away. He pass­es by the Wilks res­i­dence, catch­es a glimpse of a light in the upper win­dow, and ten­der­ly rem­i­nisces about Mary Jane. Huck secures a canoe, reach­es the raft, and he and Jim embark. Huck­’s joy on the raft is short-lived when he spots the duke and dauphin in a boat approach­ing them.

Chapter 30

The coun­ter­feit monarch is on the brink of throt­tling Huck due to his rage over Huck­’s deser­tion, but he is halt­ed by the duke. They elab­o­rate on their get­away fol­low­ing the gold dis­cov­ery. Both the duke and the false king sus­pect each oth­er of con­ceal­ing the gold in the cas­ket to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly retrieve it lat­er. They are close to engag­ing in a phys­i­cal alter­ca­tion but even­tu­al­ly make amends and drift off to sleep.

Chapter 31

The group con­tin­ues their riv­er voy­age, striv­ing to evade any reper­cus­sions from the duke and dauphin’s decep­tions. Despite numer­ous endeav­ors, their schemes yield no tri­umph. Clan­des­tine dis­cus­sions between the two trick­sters insti­gate fear in Huck and Jim, prompt­ing them to scheme an escape from the duo when fea­si­ble. Upon arriv­ing at a town, the duke, dauphin, and Huck dis­em­bark to sur­vey the vicin­i­ty. A fra­cas at a local tav­ern pro­vides Huck with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to flee. Return­ing to the raft, he dis­cov­ers Jim miss­ing. A local lad informs Huck that Jim was iden­ti­fied as a fugi­tive from a decep­tive fly­er and was bartered for forty dol­lars to a farmer named Silas Phelps. Huck deduces that the dauphin was the one who turned in Jim. He pon­ders on inform­ing Tom Sawyer about Jim’s loca­tion but real­izes Miss Wat­son would like­ly vend Jim. Acknowl­edg­ing that assist­ing a bond­man would besmirch his stature, Huck per­ceives this predica­ment as celes­tial ret­ri­bu­tion. Though he endeav­ors to plead for abso­lu­tion, he finds it chal­leng­ing to pray whole­heart­ed­ly. He drafts a mis­sive to Miss Wat­son, but after rec­ol­lect­ing his time with Jim, he opts to risk eter­nal damna­tion and resolves to lib­er­ate Jim from enslave­ment. Clad in his finest attire, Huck sets out to locate Silas Phelps, Jim’s cap­tor. En route, he encoun­ters the duke, who is pro­mot­ing The Roy­al None­such. When inter­ro­gat­ed, Huck fab­ri­cates a tale about fail­ing to locate Jim and the raft. The duke slips up, divulging Jim’s actu­al where­abouts at the Phelps farm, but hasti­ly cor­rects him­self and mis­guides Huck to a loca­tion forty miles away, assert­ing it neces­si­tates a three-day journey.

Chapter 32

Huck arrives at the Phelps’s abode, aspir­ing to sal­vage his incar­cer­at­ed com­rade, Jim. He is met with hos­til­i­ty by a pack of canines but is res­cued by a bondswoman. He is then warm­ly wel­comed by Sal­ly, the Cau­casian mis­tress of the estab­lish­ment, who mis­takes him for her nephew, Tom. She inquires about his delay, to which Huck, seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to imper­son­ate Tom, attrib­ut­es it to a mal­func­tion in a steam­boat cylin­der head. When she ques­tions if any­one was harmed, Huck claims that nobody was, save for an African Amer­i­can per­son. Sal­ly deems this out­come as “for­tu­itous.” Huck doubts his capa­bil­i­ty to sus­tain his Tom’s pre­tense. Nonethe­less, the genial recep­tion from Sal­ly’s spouse, Silas, dis­clos­es they are rel­a­tives of Tom Sawyer, who inci­den­tal­ly is Huck­’s close pal. Upon hear­ing a steam­boat in the dis­tance, Huck heads to the docks under the guise of retriev­ing his bag­gage, but his true intent is to inform Tom in case he is aboard the vessel.

Chapter 33

Huck unex­pect­ed­ly encoun­ters Tom’s wag­on on the road­way. Ini­tial­ly mis­tak­ing Huck for a specter, Tom pre­sumes he per­ished in St. Peters­burg. Even­tu­al­ly con­vinced oth­er­wise, he sur­pris­ing­ly con­sents to aid Huck in free­ing Jim. This star­tles Huck, who los­es some regard for Tom due to his readi­ness to flout soci­etal con­ven­tions. Upon arriv­ing at the Phelps abode, where Huck is resid­ing, Tom shows up half an hour lat­er. The seclud­ed kin is elat­ed by the arrival of anoth­er guest. Tom intro­duces him­self as William Thomp­son from Ohio, en route to vis­it a near­by uncle. Dur­ing sup­per, he impul­sive­ly pecks his aunt, near­ly elic­it­ing a rebuke for his alleged impo­lite­ness. Unde­terred, he pre­tends to be his own half-sib­ling, Sid. The boys antic­i­pate a dia­logue about the fugi­tive bond­man believed to be on the Phelps’ premis­es, but no men­tion is made. How­ev­er, when the notion of attend­ing a trav­el­ing show—the duke and dauphin’s—is broached, Silas men­tions being fore­warned by “the abscon­der” that the spec­ta­cle is a fraud. That evening, Huck and Tom clan­des­tine­ly depart the res­i­dence. They notice a throng of towns­peo­ple chas­ing the tarred and feath­ered duke and dauphin out of town. Huck­’s ani­mos­i­ty towards the two men dis­si­pates, and he pities them. His obser­va­tion, “Human beings can be dread­ful­ly cru­el to one anoth­er,” encap­su­lates his sen­ti­ments. Huck con­cludes that pos­sess­ing a con­science is a bur­den as it induces remorse regard­less of one’s deeds—a sen­ti­ment Tom con­curs with.

Chapter 34

Tom unveils his plan to me, imme­di­ate­ly out­shin­ing mine in flam­boy­ance, vow­ing to eman­ci­pate Jim just as effec­tive­ly, but also poten­tial­ly lead­ing to our demise. Ear­li­er, Tom had observed an African Amer­i­can man fer­ry­ing meals to a shed on the Phelps’ estate, and he astute­ly deduces that Jim is con­fined there. He dis­miss­es my sim­ple notion of pur­loin­ing the shed key and free­ing Jim under the cloak of night as lack­ing in the­atrics. Instead, he devis­es a dar­ing scheme which, in my appraisal, is far more theatrical—potentially per­ilous for us. I find it per­plex­ing that Tom, a respect­ed fig­ure, is risk­ing his rep­u­ta­tion to aid a flee­ing bond­man. Tom and I per­suade Jim’s over­seer, a super­sti­tious bondswoman, to grant us access to Jim. When Jim express­es aston­ish­ment, we uphold our pre­tense by delud­ing the over­seer into attribut­ing it to witch­es. We pledge to exca­vate Jim out and com­mence strategizing.

Chapter 35

Tom, per­turbed by the lax mea­sures tak­en by Silas Phelps to secure Jim, pro­claims that he and Huck must fab­ri­cate their own hin­drances for Jim’s lib­er­a­tion. He insists on saw­ing Jim’s chain instead of mere­ly extract­ing it. He detached it from the bed­post, men­tion­ing that it’s the tra­di­tion­al approach in lit­er­a­ture. He enu­mer­at­ed sev­er­al oth­er pre­req­ui­sites for a suc­cess­ful escape from prison, such as a rope lad­der, a moat, and a shirt for Jim to chron­i­cle his adven­tures, most like­ly using his own blood. He even pro­posed the rad­i­cal con­cept of ampu­tat­ing Jim’s leg to free him from the shack­les. How­ev­er, due to time con­straints, they opt­ed to uti­lize large blades to exca­vate Jim. Despite his intri­cate strat­e­gy involv­ing thiev­ery, Tom scold­ed Huck for swip­ing a water­mel­on from the slaves’ gar­den and com­pelled him to reim­burse the slaves with a dime.

Chapter 36

Under the cov­er of night, Tom and Huck, unable to per­sist with their knife-dig­ging, chose pick-axes instead. They gath­ered can­dle­sticks, spoons, and tin plates the next day. Tom pro­posed that Jim could uti­lize these objects to inscribe his tale of cap­tiv­i­ty on a tin plate and toss it out­side for all to see, resem­bling the nar­ra­tives in Tom’s books. When they final­ly reached Jim via their tun­nel, he was elat­ed. He men­tioned that Sal­ly and Silas vis­it­ed him and led a prayer. Although bewil­dered by their elab­o­rate plan, Jim agreed to par­tic­i­pate. Tom con­vinced Jim’s guard, Nat, who was tor­ment­ed by the fear of witch­es, that a “witch pie” was his only sal­va­tion. They planned to embed a rope lad­der with­in the pie as per Tom’s scheme.

Chapter 37

Aunt Sal­ly grew agi­tat­ed over the dis­ap­pear­ance of a shirt, can­dles, and sheets that Huck and Tom had pil­fered for their plan. She accused every­one but the boys, even sus­pect­ing rodents for the theft. Adding to the con­fu­sion, the boys covert­ly sealed up the house­’s ratholes, baf­fling Uncle Silas, who lat­er attempt­ed the same. The boys fur­ther per­plexed Sal­ly by repeat­ed­ly tak­ing and return­ing sheets and spoons, caus­ing her to lose count. Despite the chaos, they suc­ceed­ed in bak­ing the “witch pie” and deliv­er­ing it to Jim.

Chapter 38

Tom instruct­ed Jim to carve an emblem and melan­cholic phras­es onto the shed wall, as dic­tat­ed in the books. Despite the chal­lenge, they fash­ioned makeshift pens from spoons and a can­dle­stick. Tom’s cre­at­ed emblem elicit­ed unin­tend­ed laugh­ter, but his dis­may arose upon real­iz­ing the wall was wood­en, not stone. They attempt­ed to pil­fer a mill­stone, too colos­sal for them, requir­ing Jim’s assis­tance. Huck astute­ly observed Tom’s incli­na­tion for super­vis­ing as oth­ers toiled. Tom pro­posed that Jim tame a rat­tlesnake or rat in the shack, then pres­sured him to cul­ti­vate a flower nour­ished by his tears. Jim expressed his dis­sent towards Tom’s unnec­es­sary com­plex­i­ties, but Tom argued that these schemes pro­vid­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for valor.

Chapter 39

Huck and Tom filled Jim’s shed with cap­tured rodents and ser­pents, inad­ver­tent­ly caus­ing a pest infes­ta­tion in the Phelps house­hold. Aunt Sal­ly became dis­tressed by the pan­de­mo­ni­um, while Jim’s shed became over­crowd­ed with crea­tures. Uncle Silas, await­ing a response from the alleged plan­ta­tion Jim escaped, resolved to pub­li­cize Jim’s cap­ture in the New Orleans and St. Louis news­pa­pers, risk­ing expo­sure to Miss Wat­son. Tom, aim­ing to thwart Silas’s plans and adher­ing to adven­ture book con­ven­tions, com­menced send­ing anony­mous mis­sives cau­tion­ing the Phelpses of immi­nent per­il. These mes­sages alarmed the fam­i­ly. Tom’s ulti­mate let­ter, pos­ing as a con­trite out­law, warned of a planned endeav­or to lib­er­ate Jim. The pur­port­ed out­law, claim­ing new­found piety, impart­ed details on how the non-exis­tent crim­i­nals aimed to lib­er­ate Jim.

Chapter 40

Post-din­ner, owing to a cryp­tic let­ter, Aunt Sal­ly and Uncle Silas sent Tom and Huck to bed ner­vous­ly. That night, Huck spot­ted fif­teen anx­ious local farm­ers, armed with firearms, con­gre­gat­ing in the house­’s main room. He has­tened to alert Jim and Tom in the shed, but the sight of armed men only height­ened Tom’s exhil­a­ra­tion. Sud­den­ly, the men assailed the shed. Amidst the tumult, Tom, Huck, and Jim fled through a breach in the wall. While scal­ing a fence, Tom cre­at­ed a dis­tur­bance, cap­tur­ing the men’s atten­tion. The trio dodged gun­shots as they fled but even­tu­al­ly reached their canoe, pad­dling down­stream toward their con­cealed raft. They rejoiced in their auda­cious escape, par­tic­u­lar­ly Tom, who now sport­ed a bul­let wound in his leg as a memen­to. Huck and Jim fret­ted over the injury, and Jim pro­posed seek­ing med­ical assis­tance, much like Tom would have done for them. This sug­ges­tion solid­i­fied Huck­’s real­iza­tion that Jim was inher­ent­ly good.

Chapter 41

After leav­ing Jim and Tom on the island, Huck fetched a doc­tor for Tom, dis­patch­ing him in the soli­tary canoe. The sub­se­quent day, Huck encoun­tered Silas, who escort­ed him home. The house buzzed with farm­ers and their spous­es dis­cussing the pecu­liar dis­cov­er­ies in Jim’s shed and the hole. They spec­u­lat­ed that a shrewd gang of thieves not only duped the Phelpses and their asso­ciates but also the orig­i­nal out­laws involved. Sal­ly, mis­tak­ing Huck for Sid, for­bids him from depart­ing due to her anguish over los­ing Sid and the trep­i­da­tion of los­ing anoth­er boy. Touched by her con­cern, Huck pledged not to cause her fur­ther distress.

Chapter 42

Tom’s absence per­sist­ed, and Silas’s endeav­ors to locate him proved futile. Mean­while, Aunt Pol­ly’s mis­sive arrived but Sal­ly, mis­tak­ing the semi-con­scious Tom for Sid, dis­missed it. The throng brought in Tom, accom­pa­nied by Jim in chains, and the doc­tor. Some locals con­tem­plat­ed lynch­ing Jim but dread­ed hav­ing to com­pen­sate Jim’s own­er. Jim endured bru­tal treat­ment and was fet­tered in a shed. The doc­tor inter­vened, reveal­ing Jim’s sac­ri­fi­cial care for Tom. Sal­ly remained by Tom’s side, relieved by his recu­per­a­tion. Tom, upon awak­en­ing, enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly recount­ed their escapade of free­ing Jim. He was stunned to learn that Jim was once again in cap­tiv­i­ty and dis­closed that the deceased Miss Wat­son eman­ci­pat­ed Jim in her will, regret­ting her past plan to sell him. Aunt Pol­ly abrupt­ly entered. Upon receiv­ing Sal­ly’s let­ter about Sid Sawyer (Tom’s alias) and “Tom” (actu­al­ly Huck), she jour­neyed from St. Peters­burg to Arkansas to clear up the mis­un­der­stand­ing. Fol­low­ing an emo­tion­al reunion with Sal­ly, Pol­ly iden­ti­fied the boys and rep­ri­mand­ed them for their escapades.

Chapter 43

Aunt Sal­ly pro­posed adopt­ing and accli­ma­tiz­ing Huck, a propo­si­tion he could­n’t endure due to pri­or expe­ri­ences. Huck queried Tom about his post-lib­er­a­tion plans involv­ing an already-freed Jim. Tom intend­ed to com­pen­sate Jim and present him as a hero, com­plete with a grand recep­tion fea­tur­ing a march­ing band. Upon learn­ing of Jim’s invalu­able assis­tance to the doc­tor in attend­ing to Tom, Aunt Pol­ly and the Phelpses unshack­led him, pro­vid­ed sus­te­nance, and treat­ed him regal­ly. Tom dis­bursed forty dol­lars to Jim for his tri­als. Jim assert­ed that the old omen of his hairy chest bring­ing him for­tune had come to pass. Tom recu­per­at­ed ful­ly, proud­ly exhibit­ing the bul­let lodged in his leg on a watch guard around his neck. He and Huck pon­dered anoth­er excur­sion, this time to Indi­an Ter­ri­to­ry, now known as Okla­homa. Huck spec­u­lat­ed that his father, Pap, may have abscond­ed with his funds, but Jim dis­missed this notion, dis­clos­ing that the deceased man they encoun­tered in the drift­ing house dur­ing the flood was Huck­’s father. Devoid of fur­ther sub­jects to doc­u­ment, Huck felt a sense of relief, find­ing the endeav­or of writ­ing a book ardu­ous. He har­bored no inten­tions of con­tin­u­ing the writ­ing. His imme­di­ate plan entailed ven­tur­ing west­ward, as Aunt Sal­ly had ini­ti­at­ed her efforts to civ­i­lize him. Huck was utter­ly fin­ished with that.