Chapter 16
They continue to travel by night and sleep during the day. Jim keeps talking about getting to Cairo because once he does, he will be on his way to being a free man. Huck starts to feel guilty for not turning Jim in. He feels bad because he says Miss Watson never did anything to Huck that deserved her slave being taken away.
"Conscience says to me 'What 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? . . .' I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead." Chapter 16, pg. 97
Topic Tracking: Humanity 6
Huck decides he's going to turn Jim in, but when two men (who are looking for runaway slaves) on a raft float by, he tells them that the man on his raft is white. When they say they're going to check for themselves, Huck tells them that it's his Pap, and he's very sick. The two men assume it's smallpox, and they leave without checking the raft. Out of sympathy, they give Huck $20 before they go.
Huck goes back on the raft and finds Jim hiding in the water. He had heard the men say that they were coming to check the raft.
They get on the raft and continue to look for Cairo. They think they may have passed it in the fog and they attribute their bad luck to Huck's touching the snakeskin.
Finally, they think they've made it to Cairo; they plan on waiting until dark to paddle the canoe upstream. They sleep all day and when they come back to get the canoe, it's gone. Huck and Jim plan on buying another canoe when they get a chance.
Huck and Jim are on the raft when they notice a big steamboat coming their way. They light the lantern so the boat knows they're there, but the boat still comes right for them. They jump off of the raft right as the steamboat plows through the middle of it. Huck comes up out of the water and sees no sign of Jim. He climbs up the bank and sees a log house. Dogs come barking at him and he refuses to move.
Topic Tracking: Picaresque 3
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