Huck Finn - Summary 39-40

At the beginning of chapter 39 Huck and Tom are writing a fake letter to Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas to make them think there are indians coming to take Jim. They sign the letter anonymous and slip it under the front door. They also paint pictures of skulls and crossbones and other horrific objects on the doors. These scare Aunt Sally greatly, but the boys still continue on with their plan. They say the reason for writing the letter is so that there is some level of difficulty in getting Jim out.

Next, they go and collect the gardener snakes they are going to give Jim as a pet. They gather a bunch and tie them up in a sack and place them under one of the beds until they can get them to Jim. In the mean time, all the snakes escape because they didn't tie the bag well enough. This was kind of a humorous part, because Aunt Sally absolutely hated the snakes and didn't act normal until a week after they were collected again. They also gathered an assortment of spiders and other insects and even quite a few rats. The next night they took them to Jim and let them all go free inside his room. Jim did not really like them at all, he said he could never sleep because there was so much activity in his bed now with all these things, and they never all slept at once. He also said that the spiders didn't like him, they would always stay far away.

Finally, the night of Jim's breakout was here. Huck had to go down to the cellar to get some butter he had forgot(I'm not exactly sure what the butter was for) and Aunt Sally came down and caught him. Just before she saw him though, he slipped the butter up under his hat. As he walked upstairs with her he saw the entire upstairs was filled with men holding shotguns. He knew they were there waiting for the indians to come. He tried to lie out of why he was in the cellar but he started to get so nervous and hot that the butter started melting and running down his neck and his face. Aunt Sally thought that he had some sort of illness and his brains were leaking out. Finally, Huck told her, and he wasn't mad.

When Aunt Sally released Huck back to bed, after the butter incident, Huck went to find Tom and tell him that their plan had made a serious turn for the worse, but the men had already decided to come and wait in Jim's cabin for the indians. Huck and Tom got into the dark cabin just before the men, and because it was so dark they were able to sneak out under the bed and through the hole they had dug with Jim in tail. When they were safely out of the cabin, Tom's shirt caught on a post and made a large breaking sound as he kept running. This tipped off all of the men that were waiting outside, but because they were so dark they didn't exactly know where they were. Jim, Huck, and Tom all started running along the river towards their raft as shots were being fired at them. The men then let the dogs loose, but when the dogs caught up to them, it was their dogs, so they didn't bother them and kept on going. Jim, Huck, and Tom got onto their raft and floated quietly down the river. Before long, the rest of the men were so far up the river, they could barely hear them.

At the end of the chapter, we find out that Tom had actually been shot in the leg. Tom doesn't want a doctor, but Jim and Huck insist. So they make a plan to get the doctor at the next town, and Jim will once again hide while the doctor tends to Tom.