thinks Huck is a ghost. Now Huck won't be lonely anymore. Huck is shocked
when Jim explains he ran away. Jim overheard Miss Watson discussing selling
him for eight hundred dollars, to a slave trader who would take him to New
Orleans. He left before she had a chance to decide. Jim displays a great
knowledge of superstition. He tells Huck how he once "speculated" ten
dollars in (live)stock, but lost most of it when the steer died. He then
lost five dollars in a failed slave start-up bank. He gave his last ten
cents to a slave, who gave it away after a preacher told him that charity
repays itself one-hundred-fold. It didn't. But Jim still has his hairy arms
and chest, a portent of future wealth. He also now owns all eight-hundred-
dollars' worth of himself.
In Chapter Nine, Jim and Huck take the canoe and provisions into the
large cavern in the middle of the island, to have a hiding place in case of
visitors, and to protect their things. Jim predicted it would rain, and
soon it downpours, with the two safely inside the cavern. The river oods
severely.
A washed-out houseboat oats down the river past the island. Jim and
Huck find a man's body inside, shot in the back. Jim prevents Huck from
looking at the face; it's too "ghastly." They make off with some odds and
ends. Huck has Jim hide in the bottom of the canoe so he won't be seen.
They make it back safely to the cave.
In Chapter Ten, Huck wonders about the dead man, though Jim warns it's
bad luck. Sure enough, bad luck comes: as a joke, Huck puts a dead
rattlesnake near Jim's sleeping place, and its mate comes and bites Jim.
Jim's leg swells, but after four days it goes down. A while later, Huck
decides to go ashore and to find out what's new. Jim agrees, but has Huck
disguise himself as a girl, with one of the dresses they took from the
houseboat.
Huck practices his girl impersonation, then sets out for the Illinois
shore. In a formerly abandoned shack, he finds a woman who looks forty, and
also appears a newcomer. Huck is relieved she is a newcomer, since she will
not be able to recognize him.
Chapters 11-13 Summary
The woman eyes Huckleberry somewhat suspiciously as she lets him in.
Huck introduces himself as "Sarah Williams," from Hookerville. The woman
"clatters on," eventually getting to Huck's murder. She reveals that Pap
was suspected and nearly lynched, but people came to suspect Jim, since he
ran away the same day Huck was killed. There is a three- hundred-dollar
price on Jim's head. But soon, suspicions turned again to Pap, after he
blew money the judge gave him to find Jim on drink. But he left town before
he could be lynched, and now there is two hundred dollars on his head. The
woman has noticed smoke over on Jackson's Island, and, suspecting that Jim
might be hiding there, told her husband to look. He will go there tonight
with another man and a gun. The woman looks at Huck suspiciously and asks
his name.
He replies, "Mary Williams." When the woman asks about the change, he
covers himself, saying his full name is "Sarah Mary Williams." She has him
try to kill a rat by pitching a lump of lead at it, and he nearly hits.
Finally, she asks him to reveal his (male) identity, saying she understands
that he is a runaway apprentice and will not turn him in. He says his name
is George Peters, and he was indeed apprenticed to a mean farmer. She lets
him go after quizzing him on farm subjects, to make sure he's telling the
truth. She tells him to send for her, Mrs. Judith Loftus, if he has
trouble. Back at the island, Huck tells Jim they must shove off, and they
hurriedly pack their things and slowly ride out on a raft they had found.
Huck and Jim build a wigwam on the raft in Chapter Twelve. They spend a
number of days drifting down river, passing the great lights of St. Louis
on the fifth night. They "lived pretty high," buying, "borrowing", or
hunting food as they need it. One night they come upon a wreaked steamship.
Over Jim's objections, Huck goes onto the wreck, to loot it and have an
"adventure," the way Tom Sawyer would. On the wreck, Huck overhears two
robbers threatening to kill a third so that he won't "talk."
One of the two manages to convince the other to let their victim be
drowned with the wreck. They leave. Huck finds Jim and says they have to
cut the robbers' boat loose so they can't escape. Jim says that their own
raft has broken loose and oated away. Huck and Jim head for the robbers'
boat in Chapter Thirteen. The robbers put some booty in the boat, but leave
to get some more money off the man on the steamboat. Jim and Huck jump
right into the boat and head off as quietly as possible. A few hundred
yards safely away, Huck feels bad for the robbers left stranded on the
wreck since, who knows, he may end up a robber himself someday. They find
their raft just before they stop for Huck to go ashore for help. Ashore,
Huck finds a ferry watchman, and tells him his family is stranded on the
steamboat wreck. The watchman tell him the wreck is of the Walter Scott.
Huck invents an elaborate story as to how his family got on the wreck,
including the niece of a local big shot among them, so that the man is more
than happy to take his ferry to help. Huck feels good about his good deed,
and thinks Widow Douglas would have been proud of him. Jim and Huck turn
into an island, and sink the robbers' boat before going to bed.
Chapters 14-16 Summary
Jim and Huck find a number of valuables among the robbers' booty in
Chapter Fourteen, mostly trinkets and cigars. Jim says he doesn't enjoy
Huck's "adventures," since they risk his getting caught. Huck recognizes
that Jim is intelligent, at least for what Huck thinks of a black person.
Huck astonishes Jim with his stories of kings. Jim had only heard of King
Solomon, whom he considers a fool for wanting to chop a baby in half. Huck
cannot convince Jim otherwise. Huck also tells Jim about the "dolphin," son
of the executed King Louis XVI of France, rumored to be wandering America.
Jim is incredulous when Huck explains that the French do not speak English,
but another language. Huck tries to argue the point with Jim, but gives up
in defeat.
Huck and Jim are nearing the Ohio River, their goal, in Chapter
Fifteen. But one densely foggy night, Huck, in the canoe, gets separated
from Jim and the raft. He tries to paddle back to it, but the fog is so
thick he loses all sense of direction. After a lonely time adrift, Huck is
reunited with Jim, who is asleep on the raft. Jim is thrilled to see Huck
alive. But Huck tries to trick Jim, pretending he dreamed their entire
separation. Jim tells Huck the story of his dream, making the fog and the
troubles he faced on the raft into an allegory of their journey to the free
states. But soon Jim notices all the debris, dirt and tree branches, that
collected on the raft while it was adrift.
He gets mad at Huck for making a fool of him after he had worried about
him so much. "It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go
and humble myself to a nigger," but Huck apologizes, and does not regret
it. He feels bad about hurting Jim. Jim and Huck hope they don't miss
Cairo, the town at the mouth of the Ohio River, which runs into the free
states. Meanwhile, Huck's conscience troubles him deeply about helping Jim
escape from his "rightful owner," Miss Watson, especially after her
consideration for Huck. Jim can't stop talking about going to the free
states, especially about his plan to earn money to buy his wife and
children's freedom, or have some abolitionists kidnap them if their masters
refuse. When they think they see Cairo, Jim goes out on the canoe to check,
secretly resolved to give Jim up. But his heart softens when he hears Jim
call out that he is his only friend, the only one to keep a promise to him.
Huck comes upon some men in a boat who want to search his raft for escaped
slaves. Huck pretends to be grateful, saying no one else would help them.
He leads them to believe his family, on board the raft, has smallpox. The
men back away, telling Huck to go further downstream and lie about his
family's condition to get help. They leave forty dollars in gold out of
pity. Huck feels bad for having done wrong by not giving Jim up.
But he realizes that he would have felt just as bad if he had given Jim
up. Since good and bad seem to have the same results, Huck resolves to
disregard morality in the future and do what's "handiest." Floating along,
they pass several towns that are not Cairo, and worry that they passed it
in the fog. They stop for the night, and resolve to take the canoe upriver,
but in the morning it is gone{ more bad luck from the rattlesnake. Later, a
steamboat drives right into the raft, breaking it apart. Jim and Huck dive
off in time, but are separated. Huck makes it ashore, but is caught by a
pack of dogs.
Chapters 17-19 Summary
A man finds Huck in Chapter Seventeen and calls off the dogs. Huck
introduces himself as George Jackson. The man brings "George" home, where
he is eyed cautiously as a possible member of the Sheperdson family. But
they decide he is not. The lady of the house has Buck, a boy about Huck's
age (thirteen or fourteen) get Huck some dry clothes. Buck says he would
have killed a Shepardson if there had been any. Buck tells Huck a riddle,
though Huck does not understand the concept of riddles. Buck says Huck must
stay with him and they will have great fun. Huck invents an elaborate story
of how he was orphaned. The family, the Grangerfords, offer to let him stay
with them for as long as he likes. Huck innocently admires the house and
its (humorously tacky) finery. He similarly admires the work of a deceased
daughter, Emmeline, who created (unintentionally funny) maudlin pictures
and poems about people who died. "Nothing couldn't be better" than life at
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