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Huck Finn CHAPTER XXXV IT would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down into the woods; because Tom said we got to have some light to see how to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble; what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks thats called fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied: Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be. And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan. There aint no watchman to be drugged now there ought to be a watchman. There aint even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And theres Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain.
And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the punk-headed nigger, and dont send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim could a got out of that window-hole before this, only there wouldnt be no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, Huck, its the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You got to invent all the difficulties. Well, we cant help it; we got to do the best we can with the materials weve got. Anyhow, theres one 317 - thing theres more honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and dangers, where there want one of them furnished to you by the people who it was their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all out of your own head.
Now look at just that one thing of the lantern. When you come down to the cold facts, we simply got to let on that a lanterns reply. Why, we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, I believe. Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up something to make a saw out of the first chance we get. What do we want of a saw? What do we want of a saw?
Hand we got to saw the leg of Jims bed off, so as to get the chain loose? Why, you just said a body could lift up the bed-stead and slip the chain off. Well, if that aint just like you, Huck Finn. You can get up the infant-schoolnet ways of going at a thing. Why, hand you ever read any books at all? Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV. , nor none of them heroes?
Who ever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an old-may way as that? No; the way all the best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just so, and swallow the sawdust, so it cant be found, and put some dirt and grease around the sawed place so the very keenest senegal cant see no sign of its being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound. Then, the night youre ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, 318 - you know and theres your horses and your trusty vases, and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Languedoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. Its gaudy, Huck.
I wish there was a moat to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, well dig one. I says: What do we want of a moat when were going to snake him out from under the cabin? But he never heard me.
He had forgot me and everything else. He had his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his head; then sighs again, and says: No, it wouldnt do there aint necessity enough for it. For what?
I says. Why, to saw Jims leg off, he says. Good land! I says; why, there aint no necessity for it. And what would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway? Well, some of the best authorities has done it.
They couldnt get the chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would be better still. But we got to let that go. There aint necessity enough in this case; and, besides, Jims a nigger, and wouldnt understand the reasons for it, and how its the custom in Europe; so well let it go. But theres one thing he can have a rope ladder; we can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we can send it to him in a pie; its mostly done that way.
And Ive et worse pies. Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk, I says; Jim aint got no use for a rope ladder. 319 - He has got use for it. How you talk, you better say; you dont know nothing about it. Hes got to have a rope ladder; they all do.
What in the nation can he do with it? Do with it? He can hide it in his bed, cant he? Thats what they all do; and hes got to, too. Huck, you dont ever seem to want to do anything thats regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the time. Spose he dont do nothing with it?
aint it there in his bed, for a clew, after hes gone? and dont you reckon theyll want clews? Of course they will. And you wouldnt leave them any? That would be a pretty howdy-do, wouldnt it! I never heard of such a thing.
Well, I says, if its in the regulations, and hes got to have it, all right, let him have it; because I dont wish to go back on no regulations; but theres one thing, Tom Sawyer if we go to tearing up our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, were going to get into trouble with Aunt Sally, just as sure as youre born. Now, the way I look at it, a hickory-bark ladder dont cost nothing, and dont waste nothing, and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he aint had no experience, and so he dont care what kind of a Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you Id keep still thats what Id do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a hickory-bark ladder? Why, its perfectly ridiculous. Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if youll take my advice, youll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline. 320 - He said that would do.
And that gave him another idea, and he says: Borrow a shirt, too. What do we want of a shirt, Tom? Want it for Jim to keep a journal on. Journal your granny Jim cant write.
Spose he cant write he can make marks on the shirt, cant he, if we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron barrel-hoop? Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better one; and quicker, too. Prisoners dont have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens out of, you muggins. They always make their pens out of the hardest, toughest, troublesome st piece of old brass candlestick or something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because theyve got to do it by rubbing it on the wall. They wouldnt use a goose-quill if they had it. It aint regular.
Well, then, what we make him the ink out of? Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but thats the common sort and women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to let the world know where hes captivated, he can write it on the bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask always done that, and its a blame good way, too. Jim aint got no tin plates.
They feed him in a pan. That aint nothing; we can get him some. 321 - Cant nobody read his plates. That aint got anything to do with it, Huck Finn. All hes got to do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You dont have to be able to read it. Why, half the time you cant read anything a prisoner writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else.
Well, then, whats the sense in wasting the plates? Why, blame it all, it aint the prisoners plates. But its somebody's plates, aint it? Well, spose it is? What does the prisoner care whose He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we cleared out for the house.
Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing, because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it want borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and prisoners dont care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody dont blame them for it, either. It aint no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; its his right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we want prisoners it would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when he want a prisoner.
So we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat 322 - it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didnt need it to get out of prison with; theres where the difference was.
He said if Id a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the senegal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldnt see no advantage in my representing a prisoner if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon. Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile to talk. He says: Everythings all right now except tools; and thats easy fixed.
Tools? I says. Yes. Tools for what?
Why, to dig with. We aint a-going to gnaw him out, are we? Aint them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a nigger out with? I says. He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says: Huck Finn, did you ever hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with?
Now I want to ask you if you got any reasonableness in 323 - you at all what kind of a show would that give him to be a hero? Why, they might as well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels why, they wouldnt furnish em to a king. Well, then, I says, if we dont want the picks and shovels, what do we want?
A couple of case-knives. To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with? Yes. Confound it, its foolish, Tom. It dont make no difference how foolish it is, its the right way and its the regular way. And there aint no other way, that ever I heard of, and Ive read all the books that gives any information about these things.
They always dig out with a case-knife and not through dirt, mind you; general its through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in the bottom dungeon of the Castle Does, in the harbor of Marseilles, that dug himself out that way; how long was he at it, you reckon? I dont know.
Well, guess. I dont know. A month and a half. Thirty-seven year and he come out in China. Thats the kind. I wish the bottom of this fortress was solid rock.
Jim dont know nobody in China. Whats that got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But youre always a-wandering off on a side issue.
Why cant you stick to the main point? All right I dont care where he comes out, so 324 - he comes out; and Jim dont, either, I reckon. But theres one thing, anyway Jims too old to be dug out with a case-knife. He wont last. Yes he will last, too. You dont reckon its going to take thirty-seven years to dig out through a dirt foundation, do you?
How long will it take, Tom? Well, we cant re being as long as we ought to, because it maynt take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. Hell hear Jim aint from there. Then his next move will be to advertise Jim, or something like that. So we cant re being as long digging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be a couple of years; but we cant.
Things being so uncertain, what I recommend is this: that we really dig right in, as quick as we can; and after that, we can let on, to ourselves, that we was at it thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush him away the first time theres an alarm. Yes, I reckon that ll be the best way. Now, theres sense in that, I says. Letting on dont cost nothing; letting on aint no trouble; and if its any object, I dont mind letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldnt strain me none, after I got my hand in.
So Ill mosey along now, and such a couple of case-knives. Such three, he says; we want one to make a saw out of. Tom, if it aint un regular and irreligious to select it, I says, theres an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the weather-boarding behind the smoke-house. 325 - He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says: It aint no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and such the knives three of them. So I done it. 326 -
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Research essay sample on Huck Finn Thirty Seven
