Huck/Jim Encounter 11 - Chapter 18

After the collision between the raft and the riverboat, Jim and Huck are separated, and don't reunite until well into the Grangerford-Shepardson story.
Also, Hearn notes that there was a long break between chapter 16 and 17, and the story has shifted from a river adventure with Jim to a series of stories about those who live in the towns along the river.

Huck/Jim Encounter 10 - Chapter 16

The reader can't help but notice the contrast between the beginning of this chapter which opens with Huck observing that they slept most of the day, and as they started out at night noticed a long raft:

WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession.  She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely.  She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end.  There was a power of style about her.

Wait.
You just had a powerful encounter with Jim. You learned something about his humanity and the limits of what is acceptable for childhood pranks when you are traveling with someone who considers you a friend, and trusts you with their life, or at least, freedom.
And all you can do is to make like nothing happened?
(Of course we don't know what happened in the 'humbling' conversation that Huck mentions to the reader in the prior chapter; perhaps that conversation was enough to repair the damage and Jim and Huck have a renewed relationship.)

They begin to worry that they might have missed Cairo, the entrance to the Ohio river. Jim expresses to Huck that if they miss it, he'd be in slave country again and  lose his opportunity for freedom.

Here is another major wresting match between heart and conscience, the conscience that has been developed by the rules and attitudes of society. Now the two Providences are arguing inside of 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.  I couldn’t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn’t rest; I couldn’t stay still in one place.  It hadn’t ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing.  But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more.  I tried to make out to myself that I warn’t to blame, because I didn’t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn’t no use, conscience up and says, every time, “But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody.”  That was so—I couldn’t get around that noway.  That was where it pinched.  Conscience says to me, “What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?  What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean?  Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how.  That’s what she done.”
I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead.  I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down past me.  We neither of us could keep still.  Every time he danced around and says, “Dah’s Cairo!” it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.

Miss Watson has been difficult and mean at times to Huck, and here he is worrying about her? He is using her as a fill-in for society at large, for the outside influences on his thinking and morality. He us caught up in a fight with conventional morality versus a heart that has clearly been shaken by Jim's humanity.

Huck is now living into the widow's providence, the turning toward praying for and working for the good of others. Whereas before he figured that this would only help the other and not himself, he has clearly benefited from paying attention to Jim's welfare.

But the recognition that he is in a struggle ('I most wished I was dead') shows that his spiritual journey has taken a turn. The influence of the prior chapter's cruel trick and rebuke from Jim has triggered this crisis of conscience.

In my own story, I believe that when I read this book as a child, not understanding much about racism or satire, I was reading the story of a boy's adventure with a negro fool/minstrel. I had no developed sense of temperament, or heart as twain calls it. Instead, my conscience was totally controlled by the conventional morality of my all white community, my white parents and grandparents, and what society was telling me about blacks from the movies and tv.
Thus, Huck is having this crisis, and I'm seeing it for the first time because I'm a man, and I've seen the alternative to the conventions of morality, based on real emotional and spiritual knowledge of blacks.

While Huck is having his moment of conscience, Jim is dreaming of freedom, and imagining what he will do:

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself.  He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them.

Jim models love. Jim models courage.
Jim has practical plans. One guesses that his motivation to run away was at first the prospect of being sold further down the river. But now that he has been free for awhile, and seems close to freedom, he turns to realizing a reunification with his family.
The reader must be rejoicing for Jim here. We learn for the first time that his family has been separated and that Jim's freedom is not just for himself, but for his family.
We want Huck to respond with support and a further call to help him, but Huck is still in full conscience wresting mode:

It most froze me to hear such talk.  He wouldn’t ever dared to talk such talk in his life before.  Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free.  It was according to the old saying, “Give a nigger an inch and he’ll take an ell.”  Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking.  Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm.
I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.  

Who is the real Huck Finn? Is it the Huck who seems to be shocked that Jim would want to reunite with his family? Whose heart is causing him to wrestle with this?
Or is it the racist Huck who recites the old saying. (There is no literary device to counter the plain fact that Huck here has returned to the conventions of morality and racism- give Jim and inch.... etc.)

And then, in a classic example of what Ignatius of Loyola called false consolation, Huck decides to go against his heart and embrace the temptations of society for acceptance:

My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, “Let up on me—it ain’t too late yet—I’ll paddle ashore at the first light and tell.”  I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off.  All my troubles was gone.  I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. 

Ignatius states that the 'evil spirit' in false consolation uses the appearance of lightness and unburdened-ness as a means to continue to draw the person away from God (or in this case, the heart).

Jim thinks he sees Cairo, and Huck uses that as a pretense to begin his betrayal of Jim.
He gets into the canoe, promising Jim he'll verify the presence of Cairo.
But Jim, once again shows his care and concern for his friend Huck:

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:
“Pooty soon I’ll be a-shout’n’ for joy, en I’ll say, it’s all on accounts o’ Huck; I’s a free man, en I couldn’t ever ben free ef it hadn’ ben for Huck; Huck done it.  Jim won’t ever forgit you, Huck; you’s de bes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’s de only fren’ ole Jim’s got now.”

What a thing to say to Huck in the middle of his crisis! And to think that his false consolation was succeeding by planning the betrayal.
What does Huck do? Continue the narrative that he is responsible for this freedom, and now Jim has even confirmed it out loud! Or absorb, one more time, the loving words that Jim has spoken about his friend Huck? Not only words, but the man put his own old coat in the bottom of the canoe. For Huck's comfort? Sacrificing his own comfort for his friend?

Huck is determined to betray, but as he paddles away, the false consolation fades:

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me.  I went along slow then, and I warn’t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn’t.  When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:
“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlman dat ever kep’ his promise to ole Jim.”
Well, I just felt sick.  But I says, I got to do it—I can’t get out of it.  Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped.  One of them says:
“What’s that yonder?”
“A piece of a raft,” I says.
“Do you belong on it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any men on it?”
“Only one, sir.”
“Well, there’s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head of the bend.  Is your man white or black?”
I didn’t answer up prompt.  I tried to, but the words wouldn’t come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn’t man enough—hadn’t the spunk of a rabbit.  I see I was weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:
“He’s white.”

Once again his conscience has lost the battle with his heart.

Huck then invents the 'small pox' narrative that prevents the men from boarding the raft and discovering Jim.

Huck, having wrestled with his conscience and lost, is now in consolation, but he doesn't know it. He has chosen love and friendship. He admits that he would feel bad if he had succeeded in turning Jim in.  He has chosen the widow's Providence:

WIDOWS PROVIDENCE


They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get started right when he’s little ain’t got no show—when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat.  Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now?  No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the same way I do now.  Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?  I was stuck.  I couldn’t answer that.  So I reckoned I wouldn’t bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.

Once again Jim expresses his appreciation for Huck's help, and admiration for the way Huck tells his strechers:

“I was a-listenin’ to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyne to shove for sho’ if dey come aboard.  Den I was gwyne to swim to de raf’ agin when dey was gone.  But lawsy, how you did fool ‘em, Huck!  Dat wuz de smartes’ dodge!  I tell you, chile, I’spec it save’ ole Jim—ole Jim ain’t going to forgit you for dat, honey.”

And then, although the reader doesn't know it, the novel abruptly takes a fatal turn, as Huck and Jim discover that they have missed Cairo, and in just a few sentences, they also lose the canoe.

When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy!  So it was all up with Cairo.

and

...when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone!

and then, as they decide to get back on the raft and continue downstream to buy another canoe, a steamboat comes along and plows into the raft. Jim and Huck go overboard, and when the chapter ends Jim is gone and Huck is climbing up on the shore.

Huck/Jim Encounter 9 - Chapter 15

At the beginning of the chapter, Huck and Jim are on the river. Huck is in the canoe, looking for spot on a tow-head to tie the raft up for the night, but the raft tears loose and Huck and Jim get separated in the fog.

Huck starts the first paragraph reviewing the plans -  to get to Cairo, where the Ohio river meets the Mississippi, sell the raft and get on a steamboat up the Ohio. Out of trouble for both; freedom for Jim.

Huck calls Jim a fool:

I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops that was making the trouble for me. 

Huck finally catches up to Jim (miles of river have been covered). He is asleep. The raft is smashed up in places, and there are leaves and branches and dirt.

 So she’d had a rough time.

And here begins one of the pivot points in the novel. Jim has been a companion. A father figure. A protector. A teacher. But he has been a runaway slave and still an inferior.

Jim expresses how relieved he is that Huck is alright.

“Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck?  En you ain’ dead—you ain’ drownded—you’s back agin?  It’s too good for true, honey, it’s too good for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o’ you.  No, you ain’ dead! you’s back agin, ‘live en soun’, jis de same ole Huck—de same ole Huck, thanks to goodness!”

"It's too good to be true. .... thanks to goodness."

Jim is glad to see Huck. He obviously thought he had lost him. Huck had previously thought he had lost Jim:

I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a snag, maybe, and it was all up with him.  I was good and tired, so I laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn’t bother no more.  I didn’t want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn’t help it; so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap.

He reckons it's all up with Jim. The contrast of emotions is stark. Jim is beside himself with joy and relief. Huck couldn't 'bother no more'.

Huck sees that Jim is ripe for a trick, and so convinces Jim that he has been dreaming. Instead of responding with similar warmth, he must have also been glad to see Jim, he responds with what turns out to be another cruel 'Tom Sawyer-like' trick.

Jim's dream interpretation is a pretty accurate foretelling of the rest of the book:

So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as it happened, only he painted it up considerable.  Then he said he must start in and “‘terpret” it, because it was sent for a warning.  He said the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but the current was another man that would get us away from him.  The whoops was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn’t try hard to make out to understand them they’d just take us into bad luck, ‘stead of keeping us out of it.  The lot of towheads was troubles we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean folks, but if we minded our business and didn’t talk back and aggravate them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn’t have no more trouble.

The premonition that there were quarrelsome people ahead and all kinds of mean folks is spot on. The big clear river in the free States is off the mark, unless you count that as Jim's freedom granted by Miss Watson.

Fair enough. Jim did a good job at interpreting the dream.

But then Huck does his reveal:

“Oh, well, that’s all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim,” I says; “but what does these things stand for?”
It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar.  You could see them first-rate now.

You can hear Huck laughing at Jim on the inside. What does he expect of Jim? Will Jim see the joke and laugh at his cleverness? Has he mistaken Jim for Tom Sawyer?
And how about the reader?
Is the reader, in anticipation of the joke's climax, about to have a laugh? Or does the reader feel the sting of the cruel practical joke?

“What do dey stan’ for?  I’se gwyne to tell you.  When I got all wore out wid work, en wid de callin’ for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuz los’, en I didn’ 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.  Dat truck dah is trash; en trash is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren’s en makes ‘em ashamed.”
Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without saying anything but that.

It is the subtle satire that is at work, inviting the reader to catch themselves as they were prepared to have a good laugh at the expense of Jim, powered by the racism of seeing the minstrel humiliated for a laugh, when Jim instead responds with his burst of humanity.

A friend doesn't make another friend feel ashamed. Jim names Huck a friend.
Jim pours out his heart - I didn't care no more what become of me.....
Jim is angry, and calls Huck the equivalent of 'nigger' - trash.
Jim expresses his dignity.
Jim also controls the scene for the first time when he walks away from Huck, the white boy, and says nothing more.

At this point, Huck could have become the boy who, having been caught in his cruelty, just makes excuses. "Hey Jim, I was just kidding." or "C'mon Jim, where's your sense of humor?"

But Huck expresses, on behalf of himself and the reader, the remorse that comes when the struggle between the heart and the conscience ends up with a broken heart:

But that was enough.  It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither.  I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.

And so we are at a point in Huck's spiritual development when he realizes that he has been mean to another human, someone who views him as a friend, who would even sacrifice himself for Huck. This is the realization of a man, not a boy who has been caught red-handed in a trick. 

He repents.

And the reader must ask, 'why didn't you know that he would feel that way?' Because you've been around Tom Sawyer too much? Because you view Jim is without depth of feelings? Because you misunderstood 'love' for buddy-ship?

We aren't told the content of the conversation where Huck 'humbled' himself; but the reader gets to imagine because they have probably thought through what they might say after they were tempted to have a laugh at Jim's expense.

It recalls the snake incident where Huck plays a trick on Jim that results in the snake bite. But Huck was able to cover that up. Nevertheless, it was Huck's first lesson- Jim feels pain.

Hearn points out that Huck feels guilt for his treatment of a slave probably for the first time in his life. (Hearn)

Toni Morrison suggests that Huck is unable to articulate his feelings for Jim and his remorse for this cruelty directly to Jim; only to the reader.

We see Jim as the adult, and Huck as the child. 

Rascism

Authors such as Ellison, Morrison and John H. Wallace weigh in on their commentaries.

From Wallace:

'Huckleberry Finn uses the pejorative term 'nigger' profusely. It speaks of black Americans with implications that they are not honest, they are not as intelligent as whites and they are not human. All this, of course, is meant to be satirical. It is. But at the same time, it ridicules blacks. This kind of ridicule is extremely difficult for black youngsters to handle. I maintain that it constitutes mental cruelty, harrassment, and outright racial intimidation to force black students to sit in a classroom to read this kind of literature about themselves.'

Huck remarks about Jim after a particularly human story from Jim (TBD):

'I knowed he was white inside' This is probably the most racist line in the book, and exhibits the racism not only of Huck, but probably the unconscious racism of Twain.

Scenes constructed to counter racism using satire:

Pap's tirade against learned blacks in Chapter 6, known as the 'call that a govment?' speech:

“Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful.  Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a white man.  He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain’t a man in that town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane—the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State.  And what do you think?  They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything.  And that ain’t the wust. They said he could vote when he was at home.  Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to?  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 agin.  Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me—I’ll never vote agin as long as I live.  And to see the cool way of that nigger—why, he wouldn’t a give me the road if I hadn’t shoved him out o’ the way.  I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?—that’s what I want to know.  And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn’t be sold till he’d been in the State six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet.  There, now—that’s a specimen.  They call that a govment that can’t sell a free nigger till he’s been in the State six months.  Here’s a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet’s got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and—”

Not only does the reader laugh when Pap threatens to leave the country in the prior paragraph

Sometimes I’ve a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I told ‘em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. 

and then he threatens to stop voting because a freed black man can vote, but we can hear our inner readers voice shout 'Go ahead, what's stopping you?'.


And in Chapter 32, the reader is asked to confront the racism of Aunt Sally, and for a moment, his own racism:

“Now I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been hungry for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more.  What kep’ you?—boat get aground?”
“Yes’m—she—”
“Don’t say yes’m—say Aunt Sally.  Where’d she get aground?”
I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know whether the boat would be coming up the river or down.  But I go a good deal on instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up—from down towards Orleans. That didn’t help me much, though; for I didn’t know the names of bars down that way.  I see I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got aground on—or—Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
“It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little.  We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m.  Killed a nigger.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. 

And there is a whole trope of laughing at Jim through out the novel as a fool, a minstrel show, superstitious, a person who wouldn't mind ridicule or being used for adventure.

Huck/Jim Encounter 8 - Chapter 14

Huck and Jim regroup and begin to look through the 'truck' that they got from the wreck, and Huck tells Jim what happened inside the wreck and at the ferry boat.

I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said he didn’t want no more adventures. 

Later the reader will learn why Jim doesn't like adventures- they usually involve his humiliation, or worse, mistreatment.

Jim explains to Huck that he saw no way out at the wreck. He would either be drowned because the skiff was gone, or he would be discovered and turned in, eventually to be sold south.

Well, he was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a nigger.

Huck is still not treating Jim as his equal. The age-old racist argument that the black man was ignorant and so expressing surprise when this level of intelligent thought is noticed.

Huck begins to read the 'truck' books to Jim.

They have a discussion about Solomon, and when Jim protests that Solomon was no wise man because he seemed to think it was ok to chop a child in half, Huck doesn't get the chance to explain the 'point' to him. The reader wonders whether Huck really understood the point, or at least, could explain it.
But Jim does have another point. Solomon, with so many wives, and thus so many children, could afford to value life less, and chop a child or two in half.

Huck doesn't press the point. We are still hearing from a Huck that thinks Jim is stupid or inferior.

I never see such a nigger.  If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. 

Huck changes the conversation to talk about the dauphin, who might have escaped to America. Thus comes another conversation about misunderstanding. Huck tries to explain that there are other languages than English, but Jim won't have any of it. Is a Frenchman a man?

“Why, Huck, doan’ de French people talk de same way we does?”
“No, Jim; you couldn’t understand a word they said—not a single word.”
“Well, now, I be ding-busted!  How do dat come?”
“I don’t know; but it’s so.  I got some of their jabber out of a book. S’pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think?”
“I wouldn’ think nuff’n; I’d take en bust him over de head—dat is, if he warn’t white.  I wouldn’t ‘low no nigger to call me dat.”
“Shucks, it ain’t calling you anything.  It’s only saying, do you know how to talk French?”
“Well, den, why couldn’t he say it?”
“Why, he is a-saying it.  That’s a Frenchman’s way of saying it.”
“Well, it’s a blame ridicklous way, en I doan’ want to hear no mo’ ‘bout it.  Dey ain’ no sense in it.”
“Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?”
“No, a cat don’t.”
“Well, does a cow?”
“No, a cow don’t, nuther.”
“Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?”
“No, dey don’t.”
“It’s natural and right for ‘em to talk different from each other, ain’t it?”
“Course.”
“And ain’t it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?”
“Why, mos’ sholy it is.”
“Well, then, why ain’t it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us?  You answer me that.”
“Is a cat a man, Huck?”
“No.”
“Well, den, dey ain’t no sense in a cat talkin’ like a man.  Is a cow a man?—er is a cow a cat?”
“No, she ain’t either of them.”
“Well, den, she ain’t got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of ‘em.  Is a Frenchman a man?”
“Yes.”
“Well, den!  Dad blame it, why doan’ he talk like a man?  You answer me dat!”
I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a nigger to argue. So I quit.

In fact, Hearn argues, Jim has in a way won the argument. But at this point, well into the 14th chapter of the book, Huck is still vacillating between admiration and friendship and contempt (?). But Huck at this point is just as ignorant as Jim. His own interpretation of the bible story or the history of France is that of an uneducated boy. At least Jim shows the signs of an adult who uses reason to win an argument.

Huck/Jim Encounter 7 - Chapter 13

Huck and Jim have escaped from the wreck with the skiff that the murdering gang had planned to use for their own escape. Now the men were trapped on the wreck, and Huck and Jim were again floating on the river.

Pretty soon Huck's conscience begins to bother him, even for a gang of murderers:

Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men—I reckon I hadn’t had time to before.  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?  So says I to Jim:
“The first light we see we’ll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where it’s a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and then I’ll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes.”

Somehow, being hung is better than drowning. Of course one involves public justice and the other is likely anonymous. Still, it invokes the humor in the situation.

And as for Huck imagining that someday he will be a murderer, what brought that on? Perhaps the self-indictment that he is an abolitionist?

So Huck does arrange for a ferryman to try to rescue the gang from the wreck, but it's too late. We never hear whether the gang is dead or not, only that the wreck became dislodged and Huck sees it, and the ferryman before he re-joins Jim.

...so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.

Jim is not helping here. Huck is on his own, but trying to bring the gang to justice. It can be argued that God's justice was served as they all drowned, rather than facing the jury and noose.

Also notice that Huck does not risk Jim's freedom. He doesn't involve Jim at all.

Huck/Jim Encounter 6 - Chapter 12

Huck and Jim are on the river in a raft.
They find a 'tow-head' and hide the raft during the day, then take off again at night. There is talk between them, mostly about what they should do.

Then there are the moments when they have free time, and Huck is free to contemplate the river:

This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four mile an hour.  We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness.  It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed—only a little kind of a low chuckle.  We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all—that night, nor the next, nor the next.

They are safe. And here Huck has given us a clue about his relationship with Jim. They talk, but not loudly. They laughed, not often, but they did laugh.
This image of Huck and Jim laying on their backs, side by side, on the raft, looking at the stars is easy to overlook. But they are there, as friends, as fellow fugitives, enjoying each others company. The thought of betrayal is no longer in their conversations. They have the tranquility of 'nothing ever happened to us at all'.

In order to eat they have to 'borrow' food. Pap had told Huck that it's ok to borrow food if you intend to pay it back. The widow said it was just plain stealing.

Jim uses his own logic to say Pap and the Widow were both half right:

Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind.  Pap always said it warn’t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn’t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it.  Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn’t borrow them any more—then he reckoned it wouldn’t be no harm to borrow the others.  So we talked it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what.  But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p’simmons.  We warn’t feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now.  I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain’t ever good, and the p’simmons wouldn’t be ripe for two or three months yet.

Apparently, according to the footnotes in Hearn, theft of food along the river was OK to feed yourself; theft of money was not OK.

So Jim is trying to work out justification for the theft, but we don't learn why. But of course Jim can't just go into town and buy food. In order to survive Jim has to either scrounge for food, shoot for it, or steal from the farms along the river. In the readers mind, Jim has the right to steal food since the presence of slavery doesn't allow him to procure food legally , as Huck can and does do.

This lesson for Huck is subtle. Jim acknowledges it is stealing. He also acknowledges that he has no choice, except if he names it as borrowing, with the intention, when he is free, of paying it back.


They encounter a wrecked steamboat, and Huck wants to board and explore. Jim is against it.

But Jim was dead against it at first.  He says:
“I doan’ want to go fool’n ‘long er no wrack.  We’s doin’ blame’ well, en we better let blame’ well alone, as de good book says.  Like as not dey’s a watchman on dat wrack.”

Huck convinces Jim, but Jim has a few cautionary words:

Jim he grumbled a little, but give in.  He said we mustn’t talk any more than we could help, and then talk mighty low. 

They encounter some men on the boat, who apparently are about to murder one of their gang. Jim takes off for the raft.

Huck stays long enough to hear of the murderous plans.

Here Huck shows his genius for devising plans. He has encountered 3 gang members who are about to murder one of their own for betrayal. If he allows them to escape, they'll be murdering one of the members when the boat sinks (although the members have their own 'moral' discussion- it's better to arrange that the man die in the sinking of the wreck than to kill him):

“Well, my idea is this:  we’ll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins we’ve overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we’ll wait.  Now I say it ain’t a-goin’ to be more’n two hours befo’ this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river.  See? He’ll be drownded, and won’t have nobody to blame for it but his own self.  I reckon that’s a considerble sight better ‘n killin’ of him.  I’m unfavorable to killin’ a man as long as you can git aroun’ it; it ain’t good sense, it ain’t good morals.  Ain’t I right?”

So Huck's plan is to steal their boat so they all are trapped, and the sheriff will get them, if they don't drown!

Here Huck is showing his sense of justice. He could have just run away from a bad situation.


Huck shortly finds Jim again, who informs him that the raft broke loose.

“Oh, my lordy, lordy!  raf‘?  Dey ain’ no raf’ no mo’; she done broke loose en gone I—en here we is!”

Jim/Huck Encounter 5 - Chapter 11

This is a short encounter at the end of the chapter.
Huck has spent the chapter in the company of Judith Loftus, dressed as a girl so he could scout out information. She finds him out, but lets him go.
But he learns that her husband is going to go to Jackson Island on Judith's hunch that Jim is hiding there.

So Huck heads to the island, rousts Jim, and flees in the raft and canoe.

 I roused him out and says:
“Git up and hump yourself, Jim!  There ain’t a minute to lose.  They’re after us!”

Is Huck concerned that he will be 'caught' as a runaway?
Noone knows Huck is alive!

Hutchinson points out that when Huck uses the word 'us', he has now 'enlisted in the cause of freedom'. He further observes 'His unpremeditated identification with Jim's flight from slavery is an unforgettable moment in the American experience....'

 I think that at this point he is more concerned about the capture of Jim than he is of his own discovery. After all, he hasn't done anything wrong, and can return home at any time. His motivation is he still doesn't want to be civilized.

But this is a key conversion moment in Huck.

Jim/Huck Encounter 4 - Chapter 10

Huck is curious about the dead man in the house, but Jim doesn't want to talk about it. He deflects saying it is bad luck.

Huck recalls that just a few days earlier they found a snake skin, and Jim said it was bad luck to touch it. Now with all the treasure (truck) from the house, Huck challenges that notion. But Jim insists bad luck is coming.

In the first of Huck's mean tricks, He kills a rattlesnake and puts the carcass in Jim's bed. But the snake's 'mate' found the carcass in the bed, and when Jim laid down, it bit him.

Huck sees that he has put Jim in danger from his trick:

That all comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. 

and

Then I slid out quiet and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn’t going to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it.

It's not much of a regret. Had Jim not gotten bitten, the trick would have entertained Huck I'm sure. It's a Tom Sawyer type of trick, with no regard for the other person's feelings. But the occurrence of the snake bite has perhaps shifted how Huck will feel in the future about Jim. As we know, it's not the last trick he will play on Jim.

Jim suffers for 4 days. Eventually, with whiskey, he gets better.

Huck decides that it's time to go on reconnaissance on the shore. Jim convinces Huck to dress up like a girl, and Huck does just that. He canoes over to the shore and finds an old cabin that he thought had been abandoned, with an lady (40 years old) knitting by a table.

Jim/Huck Encounter 3 - Chapter 9

Huck and Jim explore the island.

Jim offers some counter advice about using the cavern to hide the traps, so Huck follows. He is respecting JIm's advice.

It begins to storm, and they are safe in the cavern. Huck begins a contemplative observation of nature, with colorful language and a respect for what he is seeing. Here he begins to show a keen eye for what is going on in the present.

“Jim, this is nice,” I says.  "I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread.”

It rains and the river rises for 10-12 days.

They get part of a raft.
An old frame house floats by. Jim goes inside and sees a dead body. He tells Huck not to look.

They take a long list of items from the house. It's a long and colorful list.

They take the canoe back to the island. Huck asks Jim to hide in the bottom so he won't be seen.

Jim and Huck are developing the same kind of friendship that Huck and Tom were known for- adventures and exploring.
Huck's remark that there is nowhere else he would like to be says that he is content with his relationship with Jim, and is only looking at the present. No thoughts of what is next.

Jim/Huck Encounter 2, Chapter 8

This chapter takes place on Jackson island, where Huck has ended up after escaping from Pap.


Already Huck is showing us the mastery he has over observing his natural environment. It is contemplative in nature:

THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight o’clock.  I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied.  I could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees all about, and gloomy in there amongst them.  There was freckled places on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze up there.  A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly.

Huck observes that prayer works, but only for the 'right kind' when he is able to fish some bread out of the river:

 I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it.  So there ain’t no doubt but there is something in that thing—that is, there’s something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don’t work for me, and I reckon it don’t work for only just the right kind.

Three days pass.

Huck explores the island and 'bounded right on' to a campfire.

He eventually wants to find out who is on the island with him, discovers the fire and a man sleeping, and in his first encounter since the 'trick' in the back yard in Chapter 2 he sees Jim. Miss Watson's Jim (not Jim the nigger or the nigger):

 I bet I was glad to see him.  I says:

“Hello, Jim!” and skipped out.

So his first reaction is that he is glad to see him. 

He isn't concerned, apparently, that Jim might turn him in. He is just glad to see him. Perhaps it is that Jim is 'safe', that is, won't turn him in since obviously Jim has escaped. But I take it to mean that he likes Jim, and is happy to have a companion on the island.

Jim's reaction is to get down on his knees, frightened that he is seeing a ghost. So obviously he knows that Huck has allegedly been murdered by robbers. After he pleads that he has never done any harm to dead people, he begs Huck to:

do nuffn to Ole Jim, ‘at ‘uz awluz yo’ fren’

Here Twain is telling us that there is a relationship between Jim and Huck, and that Jim considers the relationship one of friendship. Not of slave-owner. So here is our baseline.

Huck is glad to see Jim and sees him as a companion. Jim is scared to see Huck at first, but right away expresses that he has experienced Huck as a friend.

Huck explains he isn't dead, and that he isn't afraid that Jim will tell people where he was. And that he wasn't lonesome any longer.

Huck brings up breakfast, and here we see the first sign of something of their 'friendship', as Huck shows concern that Jim has not eaten anything but strawberries.

“And ain’t you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?”

“No, sah—nuffn else.”

“Well, you must be most starved, ain’t you?”

“I reck’n I could eat a hoss.  I think I could. How long you ben on de islan’?”

They eat a meal, all supplied by Huck from his stash and a freshly caught cat-fish. 

When they were done, they relaxed:

Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied.

They talk about what happened to Huck, and then Huck asks Jim how he got to the island. 

“How do you come to be here, Jim, and how’d you get here?”

He looked pretty uneasy, and didn’t say nothing for a minute.  Then he says:

“Maybe I better not tell.”

“Why, Jim?”

“Well, dey’s reasons.  But you wouldn’ tell on me ef I uz to tell you, would you, Huck?”

“Blamed if I would, Jim.”

“Well, I b’lieve you, Huck.  I—I run off.”

“Jim!”

“But mind, you said you wouldn’ tell—you know you said you wouldn’ tell, Huck.”

“Well, I did.  I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it.  Honest injun, I will.  People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference.  I ain’t a-going to tell, and I ain’t a-going back there, anyways.  So, now, le’s know all about it.”

And so here Huck shows his first sign of compassion, and the first wrestling with his conscience, foreseeing the conflicts to come.

Jim is showing Huck the kind of trust friends show to friends. He essentially puts his life in Huck's hands. And Huck commits to his 'friend', knowing that this is against the norms of society. 

How has Huck come to this place of resistance? Is this showing an understanding of the providence that calls for compassion and good deeds rather than the providence of threat?

I think here we see the first of Jim's virtues- Jim humbles himself in trust that Huck has a heart.

Jim tells Huck that Miss Watson, who owns Jim, was going to sell him down to New Orleans for $800. The widow tries to talk her out of it, but fails. Jim runs.

Jim tells Huck that Miss Watson didn't treat him well. And maybe Huck knows that the further down the Mississippi one goes, the worse the treatment of slaves. 

During Jim's description of his escape, he tells Huck that while he was hiding he overheard the townspeople talking about Huck's murder.

...so by de talk I got to know all ‘bout de killin’.  I ‘uz powerful sorry you’s killed, Huck, but I ain’t no mo’ now.

Jim is 'powerful sorry' that Huck is killed. But no longer.

Jim is already, here in the first encounter, showing love towards Huck.

Jim continues to describe his escape, and the reader, and presumably Huck, realizes how smart Jim is. Huck, who masterminded his own murder, must have been impressed and respectful of Jim's skill at covering his tracks.

Both Huck and Jim have side stories in this chapter about superstition and 'signs'. As readers in the 20th century we can be judgmental about these, especially towards Jim. But obviously Huck respects Jim's knowledge:

I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them.  Jim knowed all kinds of signs.  He said he knowed most everything. 

The chapter ends with the amusing story of Jim's 'specalat'n'. It's hard to see whether this story is intended to make Jim look foolish or crafty.

But the chapter ends with Jim's insight that he is rich again:

“Yes; en I’s rich now, come to look at it.  I owns mysef, en I’s wuth eight hund’d dollars.  I wisht I had de money, I wouldn’ want no mo’.”

In summary, the beginning of a friendship shows up in this chapter, but there are challenges to come. I can't read too much into Huck's concern for Jim yet; both his and Jim's trust in each other reflects the reality that neither one of them can turn the other in because it would risk their own escape plans.
Still, that Huck is concerned for Jim's lack of nourishment, and that he will not go back on his promise, despite the consequences, is admirable.
What would be worse for Huck- turning Jim in and blowing his cover from his abusive father but at least not developing a reputation as an abolitionist , or risking the later revelation that he is an abolitionist? He chooses the latter risk. Perhaps because his conscience tells him that he really is an abolitionist.

Jim/Huck Encounter 1 - Chapter 2

Huck and Tom encounter Jim as they slip out at night for a boy's adventure. It is the first time we meet Jim in the novel. Jim appears to be ignorant, not trusting his senses that he has heard something. But there is the alternative that Jim knows exactly who is out there, and is actually talking to Huck and Tom to try to get them to respond.

In the coming adventure in the chapter, Huck and Tom are about to form a gang, with rules that include killing people. The reader is never quite sure whether H/T are serious, or just pretending. So in this encounter with Jim we get a glimpse of where Huck's morality (and Tom's as well) might stand. He is against Tom's proposal to play a trick on Jim. In his narration he claims that it might get them discovered. But it's also possible that even at this early start of the relationship in the novel, Huck does not want to play a trick on Jim.

The argument against this is that later in the book, Huck has no problem playing a trick on Jim.

So I'm going to start with the premise that at this point Huck has set the baseline: he doesn't want Tom to play a trick on Jim because he doesn't want to get found out by the widow.

Jim is, at the beginning, introduced as ripe for humiliation. Depending on the readers point of view, Jim is either a victim of the white boy's cruelty towards someone they know they have power over, or he is an innocent victim of the pranksters, who might have played their trick on anyone.

But in the explanation that follows the trick, Huck explains that Jim, as a result of his storytelling about this trick, has acquired a reputation for having survived the adventure of having been ridden by witches, and is given some sort of higher status by his fellow slaves. So the reader has at least started an inventory of traits of Jim that are to be admired.


 Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him.  He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening.  Then he says:
“Who dah?”
He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly.  Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn’t a sound, and we all there so close together.  There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders.  Seemed like I’d die if I couldn’t scratch.  Well, I’ve noticed that thing plenty times since.  If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says:
“Say, who is you?  Whar is you?  Dog my cats ef I didn’ hear sumf’n. Well, I know what I’s gwyne to do:  I’s gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin.”

So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.  He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine.  My nose begun to itch.  It itched till the tears come into my eyes.  But I dasn’t scratch.  Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching underneath.  I didn’t know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that.  I was itching in eleven different places now.  I reckoned I couldn’t stand it more’n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.  Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was pretty soon comfortable again.
Tom he made a sign to me—kind of a little noise with his mouth—and we went creeping away on our hands and knees.  When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun.  But I said no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they’d find out I warn’t in. Then Tom said he hadn’t got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more.  I didn’t want him to try.  I said Jim might wake up and come.  But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him.  I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome.
As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house.  Tom said he slipped Jim’s hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn’t wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.  And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils.  Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other niggers.  Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country.  Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder.  Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, “Hm!  What you know ‘bout witches?” and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat.  Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it.  Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn’t touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it.  Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.