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.
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