ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

(Tom Sawyer's Friend)

By Mark Twain

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Huck learns to act "proper." Miss Watson. Tom Sawyer is waiting.

Chapter 2. The boys sneak past Jim. Tom Sawyer's gang. Big plans.

Chapter 3. Huck gets in trouble. Being good. "Just one of Tom's made-up stories."

Chapter 4. Huck and the judge. Believing in luck signs.

Chapter 5. Huck's father. A parent who isn't very good. Trying to change.

Chapter 6. Huck visits Judge Thatcher. Huck decides to run away. Talking about money. Moving around a lot.

Chapter 7. Waiting to trick someone. Locked in a cabin. Making it look like a body sank. Resting.

Chapter 8. Sleeping outside. A trick that looks like magic. Looking around the island. Finding Jim. Jim ran away. Reading signs. A man named Balum.

Chapter 9. The cave. A house floating on the river.

Chapter 10. What they found. Old Hank Bunker. Wearing a disguise.

Chapter 11. Huck talks to a woman. People searching. Telling little lies. Heading to Goshen.

Chapter 12. Moving slowly on the water. Borrowing things. Getting on a wrecked boat. The bad guys. Looking for their boat.

Chapter 13. Getting off the wreck. The night watchman. The boat sinks.

Chapter 14. Having fun. Talking about kings' wives. Speaking French.

Chapter 15. Huck loses the raft. Stuck in fog. Huck finds the raft again. Junk.

Chapter 16. Waiting and hoping. A small lie. Money in the water. Passing by Cairo. Swimming to shore.

Chapter 17. Visiting a family. A farm in Arkansas. How the house looks inside. A boy named Stephen. Poems.

Chapter 18. Colonel Grangerford. Rich families. A family feud. The Bible. Getting the raft back. Wood piled up. Food to eat.

Chapter 19. Hiding during the day. A guess about the stars. Fake church meeting. A man calls himself a Duke. Kings have troubles too.

Chapter 20. Huck explains things. Making a plan. Working a camp meeting. A pirate story at the meeting. The Duke prints papers.

Chapter 21. Sword fighting practice. A speech from Hamlet. Walking around a lazy town. Old Boggs. He dies.

Chapter 22. A man named Sherburn. Going to the circus. A drunk man in the ring. A sad play.

Chapter 23. Tricked. Comparing kings. Jim misses home.

Chapter 24. Jim dresses like a king. They pick up a passenger. Learning news. A family is sad.

Chapter 25. Is it really them? Singing a church song. A strange funeral. Losing money on a bad deal.

Chapter 26. A king who acts holy. Church helpers. Asking for forgiveness. Hiding in a room. Huck takes the money.

Chapter 27. The funeral. Answering questions. People suspect Huck. Selling things fast and cheap.

Chapter 28. Planning a trip to England. "How awful!" Mary Jane decides to leave. Huck says goodbye to Mary Jane. Sickness. A different way to escape.

Chapter 29. People argue about who's really family. The king explains what happened to the money. Checking handwriting. Digging up a body. Huck runs away.

Chapter 30. The king comes after him. A big argument. Very drunk.

Chapter 31. Bad plans ahead. News about Jim. Remembering the past. A story about a sheep. Important news.

Chapter 32. Quiet like a Sunday. Mistaken for someone else. Stuck and confused. A tricky spot.

Chapter 33. Called a name for helping a slave escape. Southern kindness. A very long prayer. Tar and feathers.

Chapter 34. The hut by the ash pile. Not fair at all. Climbing a lightning rod. Worried about witches.

Chapter 35. Escaping the right way. Sneaky plans. Choosing what to steal. A deep hole.

Chapter 36. The lightning rod. Trying his hardest. Leaving something behind. A high price.

Chapter 37. The last shirt. Wandering around. Getting ready to sail. A pie with a secret inside.

Chapter 38. A family symbol. A careful helper. Unwanted fame. A sad topic.

Chapter 39. Rats. Sharing a bed with pests. A fake person made of straw.

Chapter 40. Fishing. A group looking for trouble. Running fast. Jim says to get a doctor.

Chapter 41. The doctor. Uncle Silas. Sister Hotchkiss. Aunt Sally is upset.

Chapter 42. Tom Sawyer gets hurt. The doctor tells what happened. Tom tells the truth. Aunt Polly arrives. "Give me those letters!"

Last Chapter. Free at last. Paying back a prisoner. From Huck Finn, truly.

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ILLUSTRATIONS

(This is a list of the pictures found in the book, showing people, places, and moments from the story — like Miss Watson, the raft on the river, Jim, the cave, and many more scenes from Huck's journey.)

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NOTICE

If you try to find a reason for this story, you will be in trouble.
If you try to find a lesson in it, you will be sent away.
If you try to find a plot in it, watch out!

— By order of the author.

A NOTE BEFORE WE START

In this book, people talk in different ways. Some talk like Black people from Missouri. Some talk in a strong country way from the South. Some talk in an ordinary country way, with small differences.

These different ways of talking were not picked by accident. The author knew these ways of speaking very well and used them carefully.

He explains this so readers don't think the characters are trying to sound the same but failing. They are just talking the way real people from those places talked.

— The Author

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HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Where: Along the Mississippi River
When: Forty or fifty years ago

CHAPTER I

You don't know me unless you've read a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. But that's okay. Mr. Mark Twain wrote that book, and he told the truth — mostly. He stretched some parts, but mostly it was true. That's nothing new. I never knew anyone who didn't lie sometime, except maybe Aunt Polly, or the widow, or Mary. Aunt Polly is Tom's aunt. She, and Mary, and the Widow Douglas are all in that first book, which is mostly true, with a few stretched parts, like I said.

Here's how that book ended: Tom and I found money that some robbers had hidden in a cave. It made us rich! We got six thousand dollars each — all in gold. It was a huge pile when it was stacked up. Judge Thatcher took the money and put it in a safe place where it earned more money. It gave us a dollar a day each, all year long — more than we knew what to do with.

The Widow Douglas took me in like I was her own son. She said she would "civilize" me — that means teach me to act proper and polite. But it was hard living in her house all the time. She was so calm and correct in everything she did. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I ran off. I put my old ragged clothes back on and felt free and happy again.

But Tom Sawyer found me. He said he was starting a gang of robbers, and I could join — but only if I went back to the widow and acted respectable. So I went back.

The widow cried over me. She called me a "poor lost lamb" and other names like that, but she never meant any harm. She put me back in those new clothes, and all I could do was sweat and feel stiff and uncomfortable.

Then the same old routine started again. The widow rang a bell for supper, and you had to come right away. When you got to the table, you couldn't just start eating. You had to wait while the widow bowed her head and said a little prayer over the food — even though nothing was really wrong with it. It's just that everything was cooked separately. When food is all mixed together, like in a barrel of scraps, it tastes better, I think, because the flavors mix around.

After supper, she got out her book and taught me about Moses and how he was found in the bulrushes (that means tall river plants). I was very excited to learn about him. But then she mentioned that Moses had been dead a long, long time. After that, I didn't care about him anymore — I don't care much about people who are already dead.

Soon I wanted to smoke, and I asked the widow if I could. She said no. She said it was a bad habit and not clean, and I should stop wanting to do it. That's just how some people are. They dislike something without really knowing anything about it. Here she was, worrying about Moses, who wasn't even her family and couldn't help anyone since he was gone — yet she scolded me for doing something that actually felt good to me. And she used snuff (a kind of tobacco you sniff) herself! But that was fine, of course, because she did it.

Her sister, Miss Watson, was a thin old woman who wore glasses. She had just moved in, and she started teaching me spelling right away. She worked me hard for about an hour before the widow told her to stop. I could barely stand it. Then for another hour, everything was boring, and I got fidgety.

Miss Watson kept saying things like, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry." Or, "Don't slouch like that — sit up straight." Or, "Don't yawn and stretch like that — why can't you behave?"

Then she told me all about a bad place people go to after they die, and I said I wished I could go there. That made her angry, but I didn't mean...