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.
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