American Literature books summary
p> Chapters 4-6 Summary In Chapter Four, Huckleberry is gradually adjusting to his new life,
and even making small progress in school. One winter morning, Huck notices
boot tracks in the snow near the house. Within one heel print is the shape
of two nails crossed to ward off the devil. Huck runs to Judge Thatcher,
looking over his shoulder as he does. He sells his fortune to the surprised
Judge for a dollar. That night Huck goes to Jim, who has a magical giant
hairball from an ox's stomach. Huck tells Jim he found Pap's tracks in the
snow and wants to know what his father wants. Jim says the hairball needs
money to talk, and so Huck gives a counterfeit quarter. Jim puts his ear to
the hairball, and relates that Huck's father has two angels, one black and
one white, one bad, one good. It is uncertain which will win out. But Huck
is safe for now. He will have much happiness and much sorrow in his life,
will marry a poor and then a rich woman, and should stay clear of the
water, since that is where he will die. That night, Huck finds Pap waiting
in his bedroom! Pap's long, greasy, black hair hangs over his face. The nearly fifty-
year-old man's skin is a ghastly, disgusting white. Noticing Huck's
"starchy" clothes, Pap wonders aloud if he thinks himself better than his
father, promising to take him "down a peg." Pap promises to teach Widow
Douglas not to "meddle" and make a boy "put on airs over his own father."
Pap is outraged that Huck has become the first person in his family to
learn to read. He threatens Huck not to go near the school again. He asks
Huck if he is really rich, as he has heard, and calls him a liar when he
says he has no more money. He takes the dollar Huck got from Judge Thatcher. He leaves to get
whiskey, and the next day, drunk, demands Huck's money from Judge Thatcher.
The Judge and Widow Douglas try to get custody of Huck, but give up after
the new judge in town refuses to separate a father from his son. Pap lands
in jail after a drunken spree. The new judge takes Pap into his home and
tries to reform him. Pap tearfully repents his ways but soon gets drunk
again. The new judge decides Pap cannot be reformed except with a shotgun. Pap sues Judge Thatcher for Huck's fortune. He also continues to
threaten Huck about attending school, which Huck does partly to spite his
father. Pap goes on one drunken binge after another. One day he kidnaps
Huck and takes him deep into the woods, to a secluded cabin on the Illinois
shore. He locks Huck inside all day while he goes out. Huck enjoys being
away from civilization again, though he does not like his father's beatings
and his drinking. Eventually, Huck finds an old saw hidden away. He slowly
makes a hole in the wall while his father is away, resolved to escape from
both Pap and the Widow Douglas. But Pap returns as Huck is about to finish.
He complains about the "govment," saying Judge Thatcher has delayed the
trial to prevent Pap from getting Huck's wealth. He has heard his chances
are good, though he will probably lose the fight for custody of Huck. He
further rails against a biracial black visitor to the town. The visitor is
well dressed, university- educated, and not at all deferential. Pap is
disgusted that the visitor can vote in his home state, and that legally he
cannot be sold into slavery until he has been in the state six months.
Later, Pap wakes from a drunken sleep and chases after Huck with a knife,
calling him the "Angel of Death," stopping when he collapses in sleep. Huck
holds the ri e against his sleeping father and waits. Chapters 7-10 Summary Huck falls asleep, to be awakened by Pap, who is unaware of the night's
events. Pap sends Huck out to check for fish. Huck finds a canoe drifting
in the river and hides it in the woods. When Pap leaves for the day, Huck
finishes sawing his way out of the cabin. He puts food, cookware,
everything of value in the cabin, into the canoe. He covers up the hole in
the wall and then shoots a wild pig. He hacks down the cabin door, hacks
the pig to bleed onto the cabin's dirt oor, and makes other preparations so
that it seems robbers came and killed him. Huck goes to the canoe and waits
for the moon to rise, resolving to canoe to Jackson's Island, but falls
asleep. When he wakes he sees Pap row by. Once he has passed, Huck quietly
sets out down river. He pulls into Jackson's Island, careful not to be
seen. The next morning in Chapter Eight, a boat passes by with Pap, Judge and
Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer, his Aunt Polly, some of Huck's young friends,
and "plenty more" on board, all discussing the murder. They shoot cannon
over the water and oat loaves of bread with mercury inside, in hopes of
locating Huck's corpse. Huck, careful not to be seen, catches a loaf and
eats it. Exploring the island, Huck is delighted to find Jim, who at first
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
the comfortable house. Huck admires Colonel Grangerford, the master of the house, and his
supposed gentility. He is a warm- hearted man, treated with great courtesy
by everyone. He own a very large estate with over a hundred slaves. The
family's children, besides Buck, are Bob, the oldest, then Tom, then
Charlotte, aged twenty-five, and Sophia, twenty, all of them beautiful.
Three sons have been killed. One day, Buck tries to shoot Harney
Shepardson, but misses. Huck asks why he wanted to kill him. Buck explains
the Grangerfords are in a feud with a neighboring clan of families, the
Shepardsons, who are as grand as they are. No one can remember how the feud
started, or name a purpose for it, but in the last year two people have
been killed, including a fourteen-year-old Grangerford. Buck declares the
Shepardson men all brave. The two families attend church together, their ri
es between their knees as the minister preaches about brotherly love. After
church one day, Sophia has Huck retrieve a bible from the pews. She is
delighted to find inside a note with the words "two-thirty." Later, Huck's
slave valet leads him deep into the swamp, telling him he wants to show him
some water-moccasins. There he finds Jim! Jim had followed Huck to the
shore the night they were wrecked, but did not dare call out for fear of
being caught. In the last few days he has repaired the raft and bought
supplies to replace what was lost. The next day Huck learns that Sophie has
run off with a Shepardson boy. In the woods, Huck finds Buck and a nineteen-
year-old Grangerford in a gun-fight with the Shepardsons. The two are later
killed. Deeply disturbed, Huck heads for Jim and the raft, and the two
shove off downstream. Huck notes, "You feel mighty free and easy and
comfortable on a raft." Huck and Jim are lazily drifting down the river in Chapter Nineteen.
One day they come upon two men on shore eeing some trouble and begging to
be let onto the raft. Huck takes them a mile downstream to safety. One man
is about seventy, bald, with whiskers, the other, thirty. Both men's
clothes are badly tattered. The men do not know each other but are in
similar predicaments. The younger man had been selling a paste to remove
tartar from teeth that takes much of the enamel off with it. He ran out to
avoid the locals' ire. The other had run a temperance (sobriety) revival
meeting, but had to ee after word got out that he drank. The two men, both
professional scam-artists, decide to team up. The younger man declares
himself an impoverished English duke, and gets Huck and Jim to wait on him
and treat him like royalty. The old man then reveals his true identity as
the Dauphin, Louis XVI's long lost son. Huck and Jim then wait on him as
they had the "duke." Soon Huck realizes the two are liars, but to prevent
"quarrels," does not let on that he knows.
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