The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"So it was--I noticed it.  Well, it does beat all that I never thought
about a dog not eating watermelon.  It shows how a body can see and don't
see at the same time."

"Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked it
again when he came out.  He fetched uncle a key about the time we got up
from table--same key, I bet.  Watermelon shows man, lock shows prisoner;
and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little plantation,
and where the people's all so kind and good.  Jim's the prisoner.  All
right--I'm glad we found it out detective fashion; I wouldn't give
shucks for any other way.  Now you work your mind, and study out a plan
to steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and we'll take the one we
like the best."

What a head for just a boy to have!  If I had Tom Sawyer's head I
wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown in
a circus, nor nothing I can think of.  I went to thinking out a plan, but
only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right plan
was going to come from.  Pretty soon Tom says:

"Ready?"

"Yes," I says.

"All right--bring it out."

"My plan is this," I says.  "We can easy find out if it's Jim in there.
Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the
island.  Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the
old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on
the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and Jim
used to do before.  Wouldn't that plan work?"

"WORK?  Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting.  But it's too
blame' simple; there ain't nothing TO it.  What's the good of a plan that
ain't no more trouble than that?  It's as mild as goose-milk.  Why, Huck,
it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap factory."

I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different; but I
knowed mighty well that whenever he got HIS plan ready it wouldn't have
none of them objections to it.

And it didn't.  He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was
worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as
mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides.  So I was satisfied, and
said we would waltz in on it.  I needn't tell what it was here, because I
knowed it wouldn't stay the way, it was.  I knowed he would be changing
it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new
bullinesses wherever he got a chance.  And that is what he done.

Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in
earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of slavery.
That was the thing that was too many for me.  Here was a boy that was
respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose; and folks at
home that had characters; and he was bright and not leather-headed; and
knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind; and yet here he was,
without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to this
business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame, before
everybody.  I COULDN'T understand it no way at all.  It was outrageous,
and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be his true
friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save himself.
And I DID start to tell him; but he shut me up, and says:

"Don't you reckon I know what I'm about?  Don't I generly know what I'm
about?"

"Yes."

"Didn't I SAY I was going to help steal the nigger?"

"Yes."

"WELL, then."

That's all he said, and that's all I said.  It warn't no use to say any
more; because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it.  But I
couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I just let
it go, and never bothered no more about it.  If he was bound to have it
so, I couldn't help it.

When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went on down to
the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it.  We went through the yard so
as to see what the hounds would do.  They knowed us, and didn't make no
more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything comes by in
the night.  When we got to the cabin we took a look at the front and the
two sides; and on the side I warn't acquainted with--which was the north
side--we found a square window-hole, up tolerable high, with just one
stout board nailed across it.  I says:

"Here's the ticket.  This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we
wrench off the board."

Tom says:

"It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as playing
hooky.  I should HOPE we can find a way that's a little more complicated
than THAT, Huck Finn."

"Well, then," I says, "how 'll it do to saw him out, the way I done