"The War Prayer"

Twain starts off telling us about how everyone in the town is cheering on the new volunteers of the war, He tells us about how the volunteers families and friends are waving goodbye to them as if they were excited about them leaving, but I feel as if Twain automatically expected his audience to understand the sadness of the families as well. Twain talks about how people gather at the Church that following Sunday including men who want to enter into the war. He also mentioned how the "bronzed heroes" were returning and everybody was excited to see them. Twain also mentions how there were people at the Church who were envious of the volunteers because they did not have any sons or husbands to send off to the war.

The preacher then starts the "long prayer" and begins it out with asking the Lord to watch over the soldiers who are participating the war. The preacher also talks about how he wants the soldiers of his town to beat their opponent and win the war successfully. Twain then tells us about a strange looking man that appears at the Church and how he is dressed compared to everyone else. The man just walks in hoping no one would notice and stands beside the preacher as he is praying. He touches the preacher and hopes for a chance to speak. When the stranger speaks he talks about how he is there to speak the words that were running through the audiences minds as the preacher was praying, the "unspoken" prayer. He then re-prays to the audience and adds in the words that he thinks the people were thinking. He talks about what would happen to their foe if they won the battle as the preacher had mentioned earlier. The stranger described the situations of the losers of the war for example, "help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst..." The stranger is trying to make the audience feel guilty for praying this prayer and wanting them to win the war.

Huckleberry Finn- Chapters 36- to the end

In Chapter 36, Tom and Huck were still going out of their way to get Jim out of the shed. Finally Tom gives in and lets them use the shovels to dig a hole to get to Jim. They finally got to Jim again and he was excited to see them again as he always was. Tom warned Jim of their plans that they had to let him out but there would be a change every time something new came up. Tom came up with some of the dumbest idea’s and Huck never really agreed to them because Tom “knew everything’ since he had read it in the books. Tom thought it would be a good idea to hide things throughout Jim’s food that they brought to him. One time Tom put a candle in Jim’s food for him to find but Jim found it when he bit into the food.  That evening they were all in the shed when the other slaved hollered out “witches” because dogs were coming, so Tom threw out a piece of meat to distract the dogs from coming any further.

In Chapter 37, Tom and Huck start to get worried that they were going to get figured out. Tom’s aunt starts to notice that things are going missing and it drives her completely insane. She at first notices that the shirt is missing and then she picks up on everything else like the sheet, the candlesticks, and the spoons. She preaches to her husband about how everything is missing and blames the candles and the spoons on the rats. She sends her husband off to fill up the rat holes, but Huck and Tom had already done it. Tom also starts to get confused about the spoons as well because he thought there were nine but he didn’t know that Huck put one up his sleeve so Tom’s aunt wouldn’t notice when one was missing. That night she puts the sheet back on the line and tells them that she gives up on counting. They continue to steal things and out them back so the aunt won’t notice. They also finally figure out how to make the pie and feed it down the ladder so Jim could have it, while Nat the other slave wasn’t looking.

In Chapter 38, Jim and Tom are trying to decide what he is going to carve on the walls. Throughout this chapter Tom has to make everything more complicated than it really is. He at first wants Jim to carve it on a log of wood and then he decides that, that was too easy so he tells him to carve it on a rock. Then Tom tells Jim that he has to have a pet because all prisoners have pets, but Tom only names the animals that Jim is afraid of. He at first mentions spiders, rattlesnakes, garden snakes, and then rats. He said that Jim had to train it to become his pet and then he would be a real prisoner. The next thing Tom tells Jim to do is to grow some kind of flower with his tears, which seems unrealistic. There would be no way that Jim could grow a flower and it live, with his tears.

In Chapter 39, Tom and Huck are gathering all the things that Jim needs to be a real prisoner. When they go to find the snakes they cant and Huck tells us how scared Aunt Sally is of the snakes and she will whoop and holler when they’re around. Tom also thinks it’s a good idea to warn them because nobody pays attention to anything around there so if they had a warning then maybe they would pay attention. He gave them many warnings such as a letter, drawing pictures on the front and back door, and the final letter. They planned out as well for Huck to dress as a servant girl to deliver the first letter and for Tom to dress as Jim’s mother but he didn’t want to do so.

In Chapter 40, is when Jim finally gets away! That night right after supper Aunt Sally sent Tom and Huck right to bed. Huck sneaked back downstairs into the cellar to get more food while Tom was dressing up Jim as his mother with Aunt Sally’s gown. Huck got caught by Aunt Sally she took him into another room to question him that was filled with a lot of famers who had guns. The butter in Huck’s hat started to leak down his forehead but when Aunt Sally figured out what it was she just sent him back to bed. Tom, Jim, and Huck got out of the house easily and when they were ready they gave the signal and hurried off into the woods. While trying to escape, Tom’s pants got caught on a wire but he broke loose before the famers got to him. They sent the dogs out as well but they were the dogs that belonged to the family so the dogs just kept running when they figured out who it was. Finally, they got to the canoe and the raft and took off down the river. They were all so happy but then they realized that Tom had a bullet in his calf. Jim and Huck told him he didn’t have a choice and when they reached a village he was going to the doctor to get it taken care of.

In Chapter 41, the doctor goes with Huck to tend to Tom’s leg but he had to make up another story so the doctor wouldn’t tell anyone. Huck decides to get some sleep and then head back to his uncle’s house. He tells his uncle that Tom was supposed to meet them at the post office but when Tom doesn’t show up they go back home and everyone is all up roared about Jim escaping. It starts to become nighttime and Tom still isn’t back from “town” his uncle goes to look for him in town. When Tom’s Uncle returns home, Huck makes sure to stay clear of him because Huck is already a bad liar and he doesn’t want Tom’s Uncle questioning him. During the night Huck starts to get worried so he goes and checks on Tom a few times throughout the night and early that morning.

In Chapter 42, in the beginning Tom was still missing but not before too long he showed up on a mattress with doctor and Jim behind them in chains with a group of men. Tom was brought into the house, for he was out of his mind and he needed his rest. But Jim was sent back to the cabin and he was chained up good this time and was on a water and bread meal for some time. Huck went to visit Tom one afternoon when it was time for him to wake up and Aunt Sally was there as well. When Tom woke up he was as happy as could be and told Aunt Sally everything that had happened about them stealing Jim and all the things that go with it. Not before too long, Aunt Polly showed up and she knew the truth all along because she had Tom’s brother Sid with her at her home. Aunt Sally was furious with Tom and she warned him never to do it again or there would be consequences. Also, Aunt Polly confessed that Jim was a free slave because it Miss Watson’s will after she died, she wrote in it that Jim was to be freed, so Huck and Tom did all that work for nothing.

In the final Chapter, Huck asks Tom what the plan was all along when Jim was free. Tom tells him that they were going to march through town and show everyone what a great deal of a person Jim was. The doctor also told Aunt Sally and them what a great help Jim was to him and so they fed him all he wanted and clothed him. Tom also pays Jim forty dollars for being a good slave and Jim was excited because now he thought he was a rich man. Huck also learns that the man in the house that they found dead earlier was his father and he wouldn’t have to worry with him no more and he could get his money from the Judge. Aunt Sally also wanted to adopt Huck and take care of them but Huck wasn’t sure of the situation because he had already been there and done that before. 

Huckleberry Finn- Chapters 31- 35

In Chapter 31, Huck talks about how the Lord and the Duke still continued to go throughout different towns and try to hoax people with their shows to get money. One day the Lord went into town and he told Huck and the Duke that if he didn’t return by noon then it was safe and they could come too. They ended up going into the town and after they had been there a little while Huck escaped from their presence and went back to get Jim so they could get away from the Lord and the Duke. When he went back, Jim was gone! He looked and called everywhere for Jim but he was nowhere to be found. He started off for town and he asked someone along the streets if they had seen him and they told him that he was at the Phelp’s place, that Mr. Phelps had bought him for forty dollars from someone and was wanting the two hundred dollar reward. Huck was confused on what he was supposed to do, should he write a letter to Miss Watson saying where Jim was? Or should he try to get Jim back and continue on their journey. He debated this for a while and even tried to pray about it but he couldn’t because he knew either way it was wrong. Huck ended up going to the Phelps farm and he accidently ran into the Lord. He told the Lord everything that happened and the Lord told him that he was the one that sold Jim. He told Huck that if he wanted to get Jim back that he had to promise that they wouldn’t “blow” on them and he would go away for the three days that they were partaking in the show. He sent Huck forty miles out of the town to look for Jim but Huck wasn’t stupid and he turned around as soon as he knew the Lord wasn’t looking.

In Chapter 32, Huck goes onto the plantation of Mr. Phelp to look for Jim. On his way there he runs into a slave woman and her children and she claimed, “It’s you, at last! ain’t it?” Huck was startled and just agreed and with everything the woman asked him about Tom. The woman wanted to play a trick on her husband and when he returns home she asked him if Tom had come back yet and when he responded no, he turned towards the window and then Huck came out. Everyone was really starting to believe that Huck was Tom. When Huck found out that they that they thought he was Tom Sawyer, he was relieved because he knew that part, after all Tom was his best friend.

In Chapter 33, Huck goes back into town and he stumbles upon Tom Sawyer himself! Tom at first doesn’t believe it’s Huck because after all Huck was dead according to everyone in town. Eventually Tom believed it was Huck and Huck told him everything that was going on. To Huck’s surprise Tom agreed to help him steal Jim back from the Phelps. Huck and Tom come up with a plan and Huck started back for the house and a few minutes later Tom came as well. The family was awfully excited to see strangers and invited them in for dinner. Tom’s aunt was so glad to see him and she hugged and kissed him over and over until Tom said that he was his brother Sid. But even after he said that she still hugged and kissed him as well. That evening at dinner they all had a great deal of conversation and Huck and Tom listened out for the mention of a runaway slave but they never spoke one word of it. That night Huck and Tom stayed in the same room and they escaped out the window a little after dinner and went into town. The family had mentioned the show and Huck knew exactly what they were talking about, the Lord and the Duke’s show. They ran into them on their walk there and they had been tore to pieces from the audience that trampled the stage. Like Huck usually did, his conscious kicked in and he felt bad for what had happened to them.

In Chapter 34, Tom and Huck talk about how they are going to set Jim free. When Huck tells Tom his plans he proclaims that Huck’s plan is too plain and there needs to be more adventure in it. They sneak around that night and break into the shed to see if anyone is in there, because the days before they saw one of the other slaves take food to the shed. When they break into the shed there wasn’t anyone in there. Later that day they hang around the plantation and see the slave that carried the food out to the shed. They go where he’s at and make conversation with him until they get out of him what was in the shed. He takes them with him to deliver the food and sure enough Jim was sitting in the shed. He was so excited to see Huck and Tom, but quickly enough they changed the situation up and said that they didn’t know each other so the other slave wouldn’t get suspicious. They told Jim that they were going to get him free and they would be back later that night.

In Chapter 35, Huck and Tom are still trying to get Jim out. They go on a lot of adventures to get him out and Tom makes sure that everything they do is a challenge to make the adventure more interesting. They steal everything they need and when they go to steal the watermelon, Tom makes sure they pay for that so people don’t get suspicious. Tom even goes as far as to say that they are going to saw Jim’s leg off to get him free. Tom still thinks he knows everything and Huck has to listen to him because he read about it in the books. Tom just tries to make everything complicated about getting Jim out of that shed so it would be more fun for him, when really it was bothering Huck. If I were Huck I would not have put up with Tom’s ignorant behavior. Huck should have just did what he thought was right as well as quick and easy for saving Jim from the shed.

Huckleberry Finn- Chapters 25-30

In Chapters 25 through 27, Huck tells about all of the things that happen once they reach the dead mans home. When they finally arrive there were a lot of people gathered at his home sobbing and praying for his family. The Duke and the Lord were greeted by their three “nieces” at the door and then they went inside to see the deceased man. They gathered around his coffin sobbing and praying and acting like a family would if someone in their actual family died. After Mary Jane got the letter, they read aloud their “brother’s” wishes and went into the cellar to retrieve the money. They come up with the solution to give it to their “nieces,” knowing that it would probably be returned back to them. When they returned back upstairs and made their speech, they didn’t notice that the doctor was amongst the crowd and was listening carefully to their speech. He then started raising all kinds of fuss, saying that they were liars and he knew the deceased man very well and his brothers and these men were frauds. But the crowd went against him and tried to convince him that he was confused but he was dead set on the King and the Duke being frauds.

The next day at dinner, Huck waits on everyone so patiently and then has supper with one of the daughters after everyone else had eaten. While eating supper, the girl questions him about numerous things that happened in England and Huck was beginning to dig himself into a hole because he didn’t know the answers. The other two sisters finally walk in and scold her for being so nosy and make her apologize to Huck. Huck starts to feel really bad for not telling anyone what he knows about the two “brothers.” He comes up with a plan that he has to steal the money and hide it somewhere and a little while later write Mary Jane a letter and tell her the whole story. He goes into the Lord’s room and tries to find the money but has to hide because the Lord and the Duke enter the room. After listening to their conversation, Huck figures out where the money is and takes it once they leave the room.

That night Huck sneaks out of his room with the money, hoping to find somewhere to hide it. He made sure that everyone was asleep and then crept downstairs with the money. All of a sudden he hears someone, so he stashes the money in the coffin and hides. He learns that it was Mary Jane and she sits beside her fathers coffin and weeps over him. After she leaves, Huck is afraid to get the money again so he goes back upstairs and goes to sleep. He never retrieves the money out of the coffin and the next day when people start to arrive for the funeral, Huck gets suspicious of what is going to happen. Huck never figured out if someone removed the money out of the coffin, but once the funeral was over, the Duke and the Lord didn’t waste one minute in telling everyone that they had to get going and they needed to figure out what to do with the estate. They sold the slaves, which caused a lot of problems throughout the town because the mother and her two sons were separated. Not too much longer, the Duke and the Lord come and questioned Huck about the money because they had figured out that it was gone. Huck told them that he hadn’t been in their room since Mary Jane showed them the room and he had only seen the slaves go in and out of their. Huck was relieved that he had come up with such a great excuse because there was no way that the slaves could get in trouble.

In Chapters 28 through 30, Huck finally tells Mary Jane what was going on with her two “uncles.” He comes up with this idea of her leaving and if he is not back by eleven that night then she will know that he got away safely. She agrees with Huck’s plan and once he is gone she will tell the people in town about the frauds. Mary Jane leaves early that morning and Huck tells everyone that she is going to visit a sick friend but she will return. While she is gone her “uncles” sell everything. The next day two men ride through the town and everybody was curious as to what was going on. They soon proclaimed that they were the deceased man’s two brothers and one of them had a broken arm and the other man was dead and mute. They told everyone that they were telling the truth but they lost their baggage on the way in and they would reside at a hotel until they got it back. The doctor and the lawyer became curious of the new men that had entered their town and wanted to get to the bottom of the situation so they set down both sets of brothers and had them write a little scribble of something on a paper to prove which ones were his real brothers. They had a copy of some of the letters that the real brothers had written their deceased brother and they compared it to what the men wrote on the paper. The Duke and the Lord’s handwriting was nothing like what was on the paper and the other two brothers, one of them wrote on the paper but the other one couldn’t because of his broken arm. The brother that wrote on the paper proclaimed that he had horrible handwriting and he always had his brother write his letters for him. Well this wasn’t good enough proof for the doctor and the lawyer so, the real brother spoke up and asked them if they remembered what was written on their dead brothers chest when they buried him. The King and the Lord had no clue so they made up that there was a blue arrow on it and the other brothers knew that his initials were on it. The doctor and the lawyer didn’t recall either one so they carried both sets of brothers and Huck to the graveyard to dig up the dead man to find out. When they opened up the coffin they discovered the gold was in there and everyone forgot about the tattoo, which is when Huck escaped. He ran fast into town and got a canoe and found Jim as fast as they could and they started off down the river. Before they got too far, here come the King and the Duke fussing about how they thought that they were leaving them. Huck made up some crazy story and got off the hook with them about why he left. The King and the Duke got into a fight about why the money was in the coffin but eventually the King said that he put it in there so the fighting would stop. Once they went to sleep, Huck and Jim stayed up all night and Huck told him everything. 

Huckleberry Finn- Chapters 21-24

In Chapter 21, the Romeo and Juliet play come back into the picture and the Duke and the Lord decide to fulfill the play in the next town they reach. They practiced until they got the parts right and when they finally reached another town they were excited because they found out that there was a circus in town. They made flyers and posters telling about their playing hoping a good amount of people would come to see it. They stumble upon a drunk man in the streets outside of Colonel Sherburn’s place. The drunk man keeps making such a fuss, so the Colonel comes out and shoots him. I didn’t think it was right for the Colonel to shoot him because he was a human being just like everyone else and didn’t deserve to be punished for his belligerent behavior in that manor. After he shot them he just tossed the gun and walked off like it was nothing. The people of the town laid Bibles all atop of him and his poor daughter had to be pulled off of him. After a wall the town became mad of this incident and went around fussing and yelling.

In Chapter 22, Huck describes how the whole town stormed to Sherburn’s place and was going to lynch him. He came to his front porch and stood there with his gun and didn’t move. He wasn’t afraid of any of them because according to him none of them were men. He proclaimed that they all were “half-a-man” and they weren’t going to do anything to him. He threatened them and said that if they were “real” men then they would come at nighttime like people in the South did. They all scattered about and Huck wandered down to the circus. There were all kinds of people there and Huck watched as men and women enter in the circus circling around the ring. A drunk man stumbled upon into the ring and protested to let him ride. Finally, after fighting against him the ringmaster let him ride and was good! He stood upon the horse and rode around stripping off his seventeen suits he was wearing. The “drunk” man played a trick on his master and everybody was thrilled. After the circus was over with the Lord and the Duke held their play, which was a fail. Only twelve people came and they left early as well. That made the Lord and the Duke very made so they made a sign that announced another show and included “Ladies and children not admitted.”

In Chapter 23, Huck tells us about the plays that the Lord and the Duke put on for the town. To their surprise the audience was full of men and they enjoyed the show because the king performed the show completely naked with just paint covering his body. This continued on for three nights and by the end of those nights they had collected $465. The third night the Duke notices that men were coming in with eggs and rotten vegetables to throw at them, so he gets out of there as soon as possible. They board up on the raft and take off down the river. That night when they were floating down the river, Jim woke Huck up moaning and whining about being homesick. Jim told Huck that he would do anything to see is wife and children again, which shocked Huck because he thought that most slaves didn’t care for their family. Jim proved him otherwise and told Huck about how he missed his children and about how his daughter was deaf. He didn’t know this at first, but he learned it very quickly when she didn’t respond when he yelled in her ear.

In Chapter 24, the Duke and the Lord dress up Huck in calico coats and paint him blue so no one would question him about being a runaway slave. As they were traveling down the river, they saw a young boy sitting upon the shore. He told the Lord and Huck that he was waiting for the steamboat to Orleans, so they invited him to go with him and he began to tell him the story of how there was a man who wanted to see his two brothers before he died. The Lord and the Duke felt bad, so they pretended to be the two brothers that were going into town to see their brother. When they got into town and asked for where their brother lived, the townspeople told them that he had died the night before and they became “sad.”