As the book begins, Huck, the narrator, tells us that he and Tom have recently found a large chest full of gold and valuable French postcards, and that now he is living with Widow Douglas, who has taken him in as her son, in her apartment. His father, went to the store for tobacco and whiskey, but never returned. He lets us know that, though he misses him a little after five years of separation, his father often beat him when he was drunk and he would often hide in the woodshed when his father was at home.
Widow Douglas tries to educate Huck, but Huck makes little progress. Huck has other interests, though. He describes a four-story tree-house he has built that includes an ingenious bathroom with crude indoor plumbing. Huck, Tom Sawyer, and two other boys meet regularly in the tree-house to hold a meeting of their club, "The Gang of Four." Tom leads the adventures and pranks, but Huck grows bored of their play. Suddenly, Pap shows up drunk at Widow Douglas' apartment threatening to take Huck's money. He beats Huck viciously with a Hickory stick and assaults the Widow with a curler-tin, then he hauls Huck's battered body off in his ox-cart. When Huck comes to, he strikes his father on the back of the head with half-filled sack of buckwheat and Pap is run over by the wheels of the cart. As his father's body lays lifeless in the wheel-rut, Huck heads for the Mississippi. Near the shore, he is able to obtain a birch-bark canoe and provisions from a local Indian woman, trading them for an old vest button, a tin pennywhistle and some used sealing wax. Before he heads down the river, he cleverly stages his own murder. He kills a deer with his pistol, then smears blood around the shoreline. He tears up his jacket and covers it with blood also, then leaves it beneath a tree.
He quickly loads the canoe with a gallon of kerosene, a large bag of iodized salt, a jar of Gherkins, a toilet-rag, a tube of petroleum jelly, and a some rancid cooking oil, and heads out on the river.
Widow Douglas tries to educate Huck, but Huck makes little progress. Huck has other interests, though. He describes a four-story tree-house he has built that includes an ingenious bathroom with crude indoor plumbing. Huck, Tom Sawyer, and two other boys meet regularly in the tree-house to hold a meeting of their club, "The Gang of Four." Tom leads the adventures and pranks, but Huck grows bored of their play. Suddenly, Pap shows up drunk at Widow Douglas' apartment threatening to take Huck's money. He beats Huck viciously with a Hickory stick and assaults the Widow with a curler-tin, then he hauls Huck's battered body off in his ox-cart. When Huck comes to, he strikes his father on the back of the head with half-filled sack of buckwheat and Pap is run over by the wheels of the cart. As his father's body lays lifeless in the wheel-rut, Huck heads for the Mississippi. Near the shore, he is able to obtain a birch-bark canoe and provisions from a local Indian woman, trading them for an old vest button, a tin pennywhistle and some used sealing wax. Before he heads down the river, he cleverly stages his own murder. He kills a deer with his pistol, then smears blood around the shoreline. He tears up his jacket and covers it with blood also, then leaves it beneath a tree.
He quickly loads the canoe with a gallon of kerosene, a large bag of iodized salt, a jar of Gherkins, a toilet-rag, a tube of petroleum jelly, and a some rancid cooking oil, and heads out on the river.
