May 1st

In chapter 39, Huck and Jim come up with an ingenious plan to free Jim from the Phelps. They are going to find spiders, snakes, and rats to put in the "cell" where Jim is being help prisoner. I was having problems figuring out why they would put snakes in his holding place, but I figured it out, I just had to read a little more. Huck and Tom are going to make a dummy of Jim and lay it on the bed where Jim sleeps. When Sally would open the door, all of the snakes and rats would hopefully scare her and she wouldn't even notice that Jim was gone. But really, if you say "ouch" every time you see something fall or get scared by an noise, I don't think it would take very much to get scared. Jim, however, didn't like the idea of bringing any of those things into the barn, because he was scared of them also, but in order for the plan to be effective, they had to do it. Later on, Huck and Tom need to make the Phelps somewhat aware of what the "slave robbers" are going to do. They think that they will just sit in the house and not really do much about it, but they have full intentions to catch them in the act. They called fifteen farmers and all with guns, planning to catch them in the act. I thought Huck was going to get caught for trying to get out of the house, but Sally thought he was leaking brains instead. But, it was only butter. Huck and Tom successfully got Jim out of the barn and are taking him to the river. The farmers are out and hear Tom get caught on the fence and start shooting in that direction. Tom gets shot in the calf, but all three of them made it safely to the raft and are off to freedom.