{"id":58,"date":"2025-06-17T15:33:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T15:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2025-10-31T15:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:14:13","slug":"excerpts-from-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-1884","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shifting from Clemens\u2019s comical letters, speeches and short pieces to his classic, we get a sense of the depth he brought to his work. <\/em>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was composed largely at Quarry Farm, Olivia Clemens\u2019s sister Susan Crane\u2019s farm in Elmira, New York. The family spent most of their summers there during the time they lived in Hartford, and Crane had built a study for her brother-in-law high on a hill overlooking the farm and the city.<\/em><\/p>\n

The scene is the Mississippi River Valley in the 1840s; a rough, abused boy from St. Petersburg, a riverside town based on Clemens\u2019 own boyhood town of Hannibal, Missouri, has been adopted by a wealthy resident of the town, the Widow Douglas. She lives with her sister, Miss Watson. Afraid of being \u201csivilised,\u201d he has escaped on a raft with another escapee, the enslaved Jim. He is \u201cMiss Watson\u2019s Jim,\u201d literally \u2013 her legal property. The boy, Huckleberry Finn, friend of Tom Sawyer of Clemens\u2019s previous adventure tale, narrates the journey. It starts peacefully, until the world intrudes on the idyll. Huck narrates.<\/em><\/p>\n

A note on language: The well-known abusive term for African Americans that has been much used by purveyors of hatred appears in these excerpts. It remains here because removing it would diminish the authenticity of Clemens\u2019s language and his evocation of time and place.<\/em><\/p>\n

from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/strong>
\nby Mark Twain<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Excerpt from Chapter XII<\/h5>\n

This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn\u2019t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn\u2019t often that we laughed\u2014only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all\u2014that night, nor the next, nor the next.<\/p>\n

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o\u2019clock that still night. There warn\u2019t a sound there; everybody was asleep.<\/p>\n

Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o\u2019clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents\u2019 worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn\u2019t roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don\u2019t want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain\u2019t ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn\u2019t want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.<\/p>\n

Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it warn\u2019t no harm to borrow things if you was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn\u2019t anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn\u2019t borrow them any more\u2014then he reckoned it wouldn\u2019t be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabapples and p\u2019simmons. We warn\u2019t feeling just right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way it come out, too, because crabapples ain\u2019t ever good, and the p\u2019simmons wouldn\u2019t be ripe for two or three months yet.<\/p>\n

We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morning or didn\u2019t go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we lived pretty high.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excerpt from Chapter XVI<\/h5>\n

We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that.<\/p>\n

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on both sides; you couldn\u2019t see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn\u2019t, because I had heard say there warn\u2019t but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn\u2019t happen to have them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old river again. That disturbed Jim\u2014and me too. So the question was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and waited.<\/p>\n

There warn\u2019t nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and not pass it without seeing it. He said he\u2019d be mighty sure to see it, because he\u2019d be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it he\u2019d be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every little while he jumps up and says:<\/p>\n

\u201cDah she is?\u201d<\/p>\n

But it warn\u2019t. It was Jack-o\u2019-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he was most free\u2014and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn\u2019t get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn\u2019t rest; I couldn\u2019t stay still in one place. It hadn\u2019t ever come home to me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to myself that I warn\u2019t to blame, because I didn\u2019t run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn\u2019t no use, conscience up and says, every time, \u201cBut you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody.\u201d That was so\u2014I couldn\u2019t get around that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, \u201cWhat had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. That\u2019s what she done.\u201d<\/p>\n

I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. Every time he danced around and says, \u201cDah\u2019s Cairo!\u201d it went through me like a shot, and I thought if it was Cairo I reckoned I would die of miserableness.<\/p>\n

Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn\u2019t sell them, they\u2019d get an Ab\u2019litionist to go and steal them.<\/p>\n

It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn\u2019t ever dared to talk such talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, \u201cGive a nigger an inch and he\u2019ll take an ell.\u201d Thinks I, this is what comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children\u2014children that belonged to a man I didn\u2019t even know; a man that hadn\u2019t ever done me no harm.<\/p>\n

I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, \u201cLet up on me\u2014it ain\u2019t too late yet\u2014I\u2019ll paddle ashore at the first light and tell.\u201d I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By-and-by one showed. Jim sings out:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019s safe, Huck, we\u2019s safe! Jump up and crack yo\u2019 heels! Dat\u2019s de good ole Cairo at las\u2019, I jis knows it!\u201d<\/p>\n

I says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn\u2019t be, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cPooty soon I\u2019ll be a-shout\u2019n\u2019 for joy, en I\u2019ll say, it\u2019s all on accounts o\u2019 Huck; I\u2019s a free man, en I couldn\u2019t ever ben free ef it hadn\u2019 ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won\u2019t ever forgit you, Huck; you\u2019s de bes\u2019 fren\u2019 Jim\u2019s ever had; en you\u2019s de only fren\u2019 ole Jim\u2019s got now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along slow then, and I warn\u2019t right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn\u2019t. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:<\/p>\n

\u201cDah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on\u2019y white genlman dat ever kep\u2019 his promise to ole Jim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it\u2014I can\u2019t get out of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped. One of them says:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that yonder?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA piece of a raft,\u201d I says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you belong on it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAny men on it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly one, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there\u2019s five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head of the bend. Is your man white or black?\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn\u2019t come. I tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn\u2019t man enough\u2014hadn\u2019t the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s white.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI reckon we\u2019ll go and see for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish you would,\u201d says I, \u201cbecause it\u2019s pap that\u2019s there, and maybe you\u2019d help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He\u2019s sick\u2014and so is mam and Mary Ann.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, the devil! we\u2019re in a hurry, boy. But I s\u2019pose we\u2019ve got to. Come, buckle to your paddle, and let\u2019s get along.\u201d<\/p>\n

I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a stroke or two, I says:<\/p>\n

\u201cPap\u2019ll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can\u2019t do it by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what\u2019s the matter with your father?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the\u2014a\u2014the\u2014well, it ain\u2019t anything much.\u201d<\/p>\n

They stopped pulling. It warn\u2019t but a mighty little ways to the raft now. One says:<\/p>\n

\u201cBoy, that\u2019s a lie. What is<\/em> the matter with your pap? Answer up square now, and it\u2019ll be the better for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will, sir, I will, honest\u2014but don\u2019t leave us, please. It\u2019s the\u2014the\u2014gentlemen, if you\u2019ll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the headline, you won\u2019t have to come a-near the raft\u2014please do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSet her back, John, set her back!\u201d says one. They backed water. \u201cKeep away, boy\u2014keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has blowed it to us. Your pap\u2019s got the small-pox, and you know it precious well. Why didn\u2019t you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all over?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d says I, a-blubbering, \u201cI\u2019ve told everybody before, and they just went away and left us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor devil, there\u2019s something in that. We are right down sorry for you, but we\u2014well, hang it, we don\u2019t want the small-pox, you see. Look here, I\u2019ll tell you what to do. Don\u2019t you try to land by yourself, or you\u2019ll smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty miles, and you\u2019ll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It will be long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don\u2019t be a fool again, and let people guess what is the matter. Now we\u2019re trying to do you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that\u2019s a good boy. It wouldn\u2019t do any good to land yonder where the light is\u2014it\u2019s only a wood-yard. Say, I reckon your father\u2019s poor, and I\u2019m bound to say he\u2019s in pretty hard luck. Here, I\u2019ll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my kingdom! it won\u2019t do to fool with small-pox, don\u2019t you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHold on, Parker,\u201d says the other man, \u201chere\u2019s a twenty to put on the board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you\u2019ll be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s so, my boy\u2014good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood-bye, sir,\u201d says I; \u201cI won\u2019t let no runaway niggers get by me if I can help it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn\u2019t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don\u2019t get started right when he\u2019s little ain\u2019t got no show\u2014when the pinch comes there ain\u2019t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s\u2019pose you\u2019d a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I\u2019d feel bad\u2014I\u2019d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what\u2019s the use you learning to do right when it\u2019s troublesome to do right and ain\u2019t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn\u2019t answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn\u2019t bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.<\/p>\n

I went into the wigwam; Jim warn\u2019t there. I looked all around; he warn\u2019t anywhere. I says:<\/p>\n

\u201cJim!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere I is, Huck. Is dey out o\u2019 sight yit? Don\u2019t talk loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I told him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a-listenin\u2019 to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyne to shove for sho\u2019 if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to de raf\u2019 agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool \u2019em, Huck! Dat wuz de smartes\u2019 dodge! I tell you, chile, I \u2019speck it save\u2019 ole Jim\u2014ole Jim ain\u2019t going to forgit you for dat, honey.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Excerpt from Chapter XIX<\/h5>\n

Two or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there\u2014sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up\u2014nearly always in the dead water under a tow-head; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres\u2014perfectly still\u2014just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line\u2014that was the woods on t\u2019other side; you couldn\u2019t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn\u2019t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away\u2014trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks\u2014rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there\u2019s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t\u2019other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they\u2019ve left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you\u2019ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!<\/p>\n

A little smoke couldn\u2019t be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by-and-by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by-and-by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn\u2019t tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn\u2019t be nothing to hear nor nothing to see\u2014just solid lonesomeness. Next you\u2019d see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they\u2019re most always doing it on a raft; you\u2019d see the axe flash and come down\u2014you don\u2019t hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time it\u2019s above the man\u2019s head then you hear the k\u2019chunk!<\/em>\u2014it had took all that time to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn\u2019t run over them. A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and laughing\u2014heard them plain; but we couldn\u2019t see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air.<\/p>\n

\n

Editorial Note: Some chapters and revisions were done in Hartford, but it was during the summer of 1883 at Quarry Farm that Clemens wrote the following chapter, generally considered the heart of the novel. By now, Huck and Jim have run afoul of two con-men, one of whom has sold Jim back into slavery.<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpt from Chapter XXXI<\/h5>\n

\u2026I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn’t come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn’t see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we’d done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.<\/p>\n

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he’d GOT to be a slave, and so I’d better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she’d be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she’d sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn’t, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they’d make Jim feel it all the time, and so he’d feel ornery and disgraced.<\/p>\n

And then think of ME! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain’t no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old woman’s nigger that hadn’t ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there’s One that’s always on the lookout, and ain’t a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn’t so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you there that people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.”<\/p>\n

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie–I found that out.<\/p>\n

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter–and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:<\/p>\n

Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for them reward if you send.
\nHUCK FINN.<\/p>\n

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking\u2014thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.<\/p>\n

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:<\/p>\n

“All right, then, I’ll GO to hell”\u2014and tore it up.<\/p>\n

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[END OF SELECTION]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shifting from Clemens\u2019s comical letters, speeches and short pieces to his classic, we get a sense of the depth he brought to his work. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was composed largely at Quarry Farm, Olivia Clemens\u2019s sister Susan Crane\u2019s farm in Elmira, New York. The family spent most of their summers there during the time … Continue reading from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,5],"tags":[56,61,40,62,59,48,54,57,60,58],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mark-twain","category-samuel-l-clemens","tag-democracy","tag-emancipation","tag-fiction","tag-friendship","tag-race","tag-religious-belief","tag-rural-life","tag-satire","tag-slavery","tag-social-commentary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}