invest however he sees fit.
Chapters 26-28 Summary
Huck has supper with Joanna, a Wilks sister he refers to as "the
Harelip" ("Cleft lip," a birth defect she possesses). She cross-examines
Huckleberry on his knowledge of England. He makes several slips, forgetting
he is supposedly from Shefield, and that the Dauphin is supposed to be a
Protestant minister.
Finally she asks whether he hasn't made the entire thing up. Mary Jane
and Susan interrupt and instruct Joanna to be courteous to their guest. She
graciously apologizes. Huck feels awful about letting such sweet women be
swindled. He resolves to get them their money. He goes to the Duke and
Dauphin's room to search for the money, but hides when they enter. The Duke
wants to leave that very night, but the Dauphin convinces him to stay until
they have stolen all the family's property. After they leave, Huckleberry
takes the gold to his sleeping cubby, and then sneaks out late at night.
Huck hides the sack of money in Wilks' coffn in Chapter Twenty-seven,
as Mary Jane, crying, enters the front room. Huck doesn't get another
opportunity to safely remove the money, and feels dejected that the Duke
and Dauphin will likely get it back. The funeral the next day is briefly
interrupted by the racket the dog is making down cellar. The undertaker
slips out, and after a "whack" is heard from downstairs, the undertaker
returns, whispering loudly to the preacher, "He had a rat!" Huck remarks
how the rightfully popular undertaker satisfied the people's natural
curiosity.
Huck observes with horror as the undertaker seals the coffn without
looking inside. Now he will never know whether the money was stolen from
the coffn, or if he should write Mary Jane to dig up the coffn for it.
Saying he will take the Wilks' family to England, the Dauphin sells off
the estate and the slaves. He sends a mother to New Orleans and her two
sons to Memphis. The scene at the grief-stricken family's separation is
heart-rending. But Huck comforts himself that they will be reunited in a
week or so when the Duke and Dauphin are exposed. When questioned by the
Duke and Dauphin, Huck blames the loss of the six thousand dollars on the
slaves they just sold, making the two regret the deed.
Huck finds Mary Jane crying in her bedroom in Chapter Twenty-eight. All
joy regarding the trip to England has been destroyed by the thought of the
slave mother and children never seeing each other again. Touched, Huck
unthinkingly blurts out that the family will be reunited in less than two
weeks. Mary Jane, overjoyed, asks Huck to explain. Huck is uneasy, having
little experience telling the truth while in a predicament. He tells Mary
Jane the truth, but asks her to wait at a relative's house until eleven
that night to give him time to get away, since the fate of another person
hangs in the balance. He tells her about the Royal Nonesuch incident,
saying that town will provide witnesses against the frauds. He instructs
her to leave without seeing her "uncles," since her innocent face would
give away their secret. He leaves her a note with the location of the
money. She promises to remember him forever, and pray for him. Though Huck
will never see her again, he will think of her often. Huck meets Susan and
Joanna, and says Mary Jane has gone to see a sick relative. Joanna cross-
examines him about this, but he manages to trick them into staying quiet
about the whole thing{almost as well as Tom Sawyer would have. But later,
the auction is interrupted by a mob{ bringing the real Harvey and William
Wilks!
Chapters 29-31 Summary
The real Harvey, in an authentic English accent, explains the delay:
their luggage has been misdirected, and his brother's arm has been broken,
making him unable to sign. The doctor again declares The Duke and Dauphin
frauds, and has the crowd bring both real and fraudulent Wilks brothers to
a tavern for examination. The frauds draw suspicion when they are unable to
produce the six thousand dollars. A lawyer friend of the deceased has the
Duke, Dauphin, and the real Harvey sign a piece of paper, then compares the
writing samples to letters he has from the real Harvey.
The frauds are disproved, but the Dauphin doesn't give up. So the real
Harvey declares he knows of a tattoo on his brother's chest, asking the
undertaker who dressed the body to back him up. But after the Dauphin and
Harvey say what they think the tattoo is, the undertaker declares there
wasn't one at all. The mob cries out for the blood of all four men, but the
lawyer instead sends them out to exhume the body and check for the tattoo
themselves. The mob carries the four and Huckleberry with them. The mob is
shocked to discover the gold in the coffn. In the excitement, Huck escapes.
Passing the Wilks's house, he notices a light in the upstairs window.
Huck steals a canoe and makes his way to the raft, and, exhausted,
shoves off. Huck dances for joy on the raft, but his heart sinks as the
Duke and Dauphin approach in a boat.
The Dauphin nearly strangles Huck in Chapter Thirty, out of anger at
his desertion. But the Duke stops him. They explain that they escaped after
the gold was found. The thieves start arguing about which one of the two
hid the gold in the coffn, to come back for later. But they make up and go
to sleep.
They take the raft downstream without stopping for several days. The
Duke and Dauphin try several scams on various towns, without success. The
two start to have secret discussions, worrying Jim and Huck, who resolve to
ditch them at the first opportunity. Finally, the Duke, Dauphin, and Huck
go ashore in one town to feel it out. The Duke and Dauphin get into a fight
in a tavern, and Huck takes the chance to escape. But back at the raft,
there is no sign of Jim. A boy explains that a man recognized Jim as a
runaway from a handbill they had found, offering two hundred dollars for
him in New Orleans{the handbill the Duke had printed earlier. But he said
he had to leave suddenly, and so sold his interest for forty dollars. Huck
is disgusted by the Dauphin's trick. He would like to write to Miss Watson
to fetch Jim, so he could at least be home and not in New Orleans. But he
realizes she would simply sell him downstream anyway, and he would get in
trouble as well. The predicament is surely God's punishment for his helping
Jim. Huck tries to pray for forgiveness, but cannot.
He writes the letter to Miss Watson giving Jim up. But thinking of the
time he spent with Jim, of his kind heart and their friendship, Huck
trembles. After a minute he decides, "All right then, I'll go to hell!" He
resolves to "steal Jim out of slavery." He goes in his store-bought clothes
to see Phelps, the man who is holding Jim. He finds the Duke putting up
posters for the Royal Nonesuch. Huck concocts a story about how he wandered
the town, but didn't find Jim or the raft. The Duke says he sold Jim to a
man forty miles away, and sends Huck on the three day trip to get him.
Chapters 32-35 Summary
Huck goes back to the Phelps's house in Chapter Thirty-two. A bunch of
hounds threaten him, but a slave woman calls them off. The white mistress
of the house, Sally, comes out, delighted to see the boy she is certain is
her nephew, Tom. Sally asks why he has been delayed the last several days.
He explains that a cylinder- head on the steamboat blew out. She asks
whether anyone got hurt, and he replies no, but it killed a black person.
The woman is relieved that no one was hurt. Huck is nervous about not
having any information on his identity, but when Sally's husband, Silas,
returns, he shouts out for joy that Tom Sawyer has finally arrived! Hearing
a steamboat go up the river, Huck heads out to the docks, supposedly to get
his luggage, but really to head off Tom should he arrive.
Huck interrupts Tom's wagon coming down the road in Chapter Thirty-
three. Tom is at first startled by the "ghost," but is eventually convinced
that Huck is alive. He even agrees to help Huck free Jim. Huck is shocked
by this: "Tom Sawyer fell, considerable, in my estimation." Tom follows
Huck to the Phelps's a half hour later. The isolated family is thrilled to
have another guest. Tom introduces himself as William Thompson from Ohio,
stopping on his way to visit his uncle nearby. But Tom slips and kisses his
aunt, who is outraged by such familiarity from a stranger. Taken aback for
a few moments, Tom recovers by saying he is another relative, Sid Sawyer,
and this has all been a joke. Later, walking through town, Huck sees the
Duke and Dauphin taken by a mob, tarred and feathered on a rail. Jim had
told on the pair. Tom feels bad for the two, and his ill feelings toward
them melt away. "Human beings can be awful cruel to one another," Huck
observes.
Huck concludes that a conscience is useless, since it makes you feel
bad for everyone. Tom agrees. Huck is impressed by Tom's intelligence when
he skillfully figures out that Jim is being held in a shed. Huck's plan to
free Jim is to steal the key and make off with Jim by night. Tom belittles
this plan for its simplicity and lack of showmanship. Tom's plan is fifteen
times better than Huck's for its style{it might even get all three killed.
Meanwhile, Huck is incredulous that respectable Tom is going to sacrifice
his reputation by helping a slave escape.
Huck and Tom get Jim's keeper, a superstitious slave, to let them see
him. When Jim cries out for joy, Tom tricks Jim's keeper into thinking the
cry a trick some witches had played on him. Tom and Huck promise to dig Jim
out.
Tom is upset in Chapter Thirty-five. Innocent uncle Phelps has taken so
few precautions to guard Jim, they have to invent all the obstacles to his
rescue. Tom says they must saw Jim's chain off instead of just lifting it
off the bedstead, since that's how it's done in all the books. Similarly,
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