Huckleberry Finn Chapter 12 Summary

Chapter 12 – 7/8/15

Huck and Jim fashioned a makeshift wigwam (a tent sort of thing) on the raft and travel by night, drifting down the river. A couple nights later, they pass the large city of St. Louis with its bright lights. The pair of them enjoy themselves as they buy, steal (or borrow), and hunt as they need. Huck feels guilty for stealing things so Jim compromises and says they should stop stealing three things, but stealing everything else is fine.

As the two traveled down the river, they came across the wreck of a steamship during a thunderstorm. Huck was unable to resist the urge of exploring and plundering what’s left of the boat, even though Jim warns him against it. Huck is determined to do as he pleased since that’s what Tom Sawyer would do. Jim gave up his argument and the two climb aboard the wreck. They overhear three robbers as two of them are planning to kill the third. Huck stays to listen for more information while Jim scurries off. As it turns out, the two robbers think the third might rat

them out so they planned on making his death look like an accident by leaving him on the wreck and ultimately drowning him. Hearing this, Huck immediately runs to Jim saying that they should get the sheriff. Both of them were dumbfounded when they realize that their raft had broken loose and drifted off.
Chapter 13 – 7/8/15
Neither Huck and Jim were fond of the idea of being on a sinking wreckage with three robbers, two among them were future murderers. As fast as they could, they located the robber’s boat or skiff, and hid while the two murderers loaded it with plunders. When they left, Huck and Jim immediately climb aboard the boat and leave quietly to find their raft. Huck was feeling remorseful for leaving the robbers to drown, since it’s basically murder, which is immoral even though two of the three victims are potential murderers themselves. He parts with Jim when they find the raft to head for the shore of the robber’s boat. He comes across a ferryboat with a watchmen and persuades him to help by pretending his family is on the wreckage and in mortal danger. To cover the cost of the rescue, Huck lied that one of the women on the wreckage is the niece of the richest man in town. The watchmen believes him and goes to rescue the made-up family. Huck was glad that he made an effort to save the robbers, and wished that the widow had seen him. He and Jim sunk the skiff and went to sleep while the wreckage drifted down the river with no survivors.
Chapter 14 - 7/18/15
As Huck and Jim sort through the robber's loot, they find valuables such as books, tools, and even cigars. The two enjoyed a break from the adventures as they sat around, read, chatted, and relaxed. Huck explains to Jim what an adventure is but Jim says it's not such an adventure as a near death experience since he was afraid of drowning or being recaptured when the raft was missing back on the robber's boat.
The two also discussed royalty and the lax lives of Kings. Jim brings up how cruel King Solomon was when he threatened to cut a child in half when two women both claimed the child was hers. Huck tried to tell Jim that he missed the point of how a true mother of a child would rather give him up rather than see him die, but Jim was stubborn and insisted that Solomon was cruel because of his upbringing. Jim also didn't understand how people speak different languages. Huck tries to explain with an example of how a cat's communicate differently than humans and cows, but Jim dips him by saying how all humans are one species so therefore, should speak the same language.
Chapter 15 – 7/20/15
Huck and Jim plan to head for Cairo, where they plan to sell their raft, board a steamboat, and escape to a free state where slavery is illegal.

On a foggy night on the river, Huck, who’s in the canoe, was separated from Jim, who’s on the raft. Neither of the two could navigate nor see through the thick fog. They began whooping at each other in order to find one another, but it was no use. Frustrated, Huck decides to fall asleep. When the fog lifted and Huck woke up and found Jim asleep on the raft. As a ruse, Huck pretends that they had never separated and that Jim had dreamed the whole incident. Jim began to narrate and interpret his “dream” when he sees the leaves and the wreckage on the raft, and realizes that it was not a dream. He was extremely hurt by Huck’s joke since he was scared to death that Huck had died. Huck felt guilty for playing the trick and sincerely apologized to Jim, which was hard because of race (at the

time).
Chapter 16 – 7/20/15
As Huck and Jim continue their journey to Cairo and the free states, Jim was ecstatic to become a free man and had planned out how he was going to take his family back. Meanwhile, Huck realizes that he had helped an African American man escape from his rightful owner, and that he had done nothing to return him to Miss Watson, who had been nothing but generous to Huck. In the midst of this moral crisis, Huck decides to follow the law and do the “right” thing by turning Jim in at the next stop. He then had a change of heart when Jim told him how grateful he is to have Huck as a friend and how Huck was the only person that has kept his word.
The two then came across a few men who were searching for runaway slaves and wished to search the raft. Huck pretends his pap is ill and resting in the raft and how grateful it is that these men were helping them. He proceeds to fool them to think pap has smallpox so the men would find Jim. Feeling guilty, one of the men gave Huck forty dollars and instructed him to travel downstream for help. Huck felt remorseful for not giving up Jim, but then realizes that he would feel remorseful if he had betrayed Jim and sent him back to a life of slavery.
Huck and Jim worry that they have passed the dim town of Cairo during the fog. Huck asked a man where Cairo was, and then he realized they had indeed passed Cairo during the fog. They now plan to sell the raft and take a steamboat to the free states. The two rested up for the journey but woke up to the realization that their canoe had been stolen (which was the bad luck of the rattlesnake’s skin). The unfortunate events continued as the raft was smashed by a large steamboat. Jim and Huck got separated. Huck swims to shore only to come across a pack of deadly dogs.
Chapter 17 – 7/20/15
While being cornered by vicious dogs, Huck hears a voice from a nearby house asking who he is and if he’s associated with the Shepherdsons. Huck gave the alias George Jackson and answered no. He was instructed to slowly walk inside the house, where he was greeted by several men with guns pointed directly at him. Once everything was safe, Huck met the family and was given a change of clothes and well as food. He told the story of how he grew up on a farm in Arkansas and how he had no family left. The family was sympathetic towards him and welcomed him to stay at their home for as long as he’d like.
Huck wakes up the next morning, with no memory of the alias he gave. He cleverly bets Buck, the 13 ish boy in the family, that he couldn’t spell his (Huck’s) name. Having known this, Huck explores the family’s home and finds it quite comforting. He peruses through the collection of books and examines the paintings on the walls, which were the works of Emmeline Grangerford, the daughter of the family who had passed away. Huck looks into Emmeline and finds out that she was a talented poet who wrote poems for the dead. Feeling pitiful for Emmeline since no one wrote a poem for her, he tried his best to compose one without success.