Huck Fin page 129-157

"It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and fraugds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and dont get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objecions, 'long as it would keep peace in the family" (Twain 136).

- The reader is exposed to two con artists in this section, and after a short while Huck realizes this. but instead of calling them out for not being a king and duke as they claim, he instead chooses to keep it to himself in order to keep the peace and "have no quarrels" (136). So we come to see Huck's survival skills come to play. He admittedly is willing to "call them kings and dukes" but he only does this so that the "family" can stay together. So in fact he is using the two con artists as much as they are using him and Jim. We see that in fact that this mutual relationship to use each other plays well when they hatch a great plan where they can tie up Jim during the day in order to claim safe passage through the south.

"And it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way"(137).

- Here we one of Huck's influences controlling his actions. In this case his father's teaching about how to maintain peace with Jim's "kind" you must let them maintain their own views. Thus he elects not to tell Jim that fact that they were being used by two con artists for a while. Once again we see that his father has a very large influence on his decision for he even says that  if he "never learnt nothing else out of pap", meaning that he is heavily influenced by what his father has taught him. Yet Jim is his supposed friend that is supposedly knowledgeable on a great many things. So we see that Huck is holding Jim up to two contradictory points of views.

VOCAB:

joggle: Move to and fro

"And by-and-by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit" (131).

Scow: Any of various flat-bottomed boats with sloping ends

"A scow or a raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and laughing" (130).