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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.
Реферат опубликован: 31/07/2007