Study Questions
1. How does Tom finally guess Jim’s whereabouts?

2. Why is Huck in awe of Tom’s intelligence?

3. Why does Huck think Tom’s plan for freeing Jim is better than his?

4. What is Huck’s first and most practical plan of escape?

5. What are some of Huck’s other plans of escape for Jim?

6. Why does Tom want to saw the bedpost leg in half?

7. Why does Huck think Tom’s plan is foolish?

8. Where does Huck get the bedsheets for the rope ladder?

9. What plan do they finally adopt to free Jim?

10. How long does Tom think it should take to dig Jim out?

Answers
1. Tom sees a slave bringing a plate of food with watermelon on it to a hut on the Phelps Plantation.

2. Huck thinks Tom is exceptionally intelligent because he thought of the fact that dogs do not eat watermelons. Tom reasoned that there must, therefore, be a person in the hut.

3. Tom’s plan is more romantic and has more style.

4. Huck suggests stealing the key from Mr. Phelps, unlocking the door to the hut, and escaping down the river on his raft.

5. Huck suggests that Jim crawl out of the high window. He also suggests sawing out as he had done earlier in the novel.

6. He wants to saw it in half so he can slip the chain through it and release Jim.

7. Huck thinks it is foolish because one could simply slip the chain off the bedpost without sawing it in half.

8. He takes them from the clothesline.

9. They decide to dig him out with case knives.

10. Tom thinks it should take thirty-seven years. They decide they will only imagine it took them thirty-seven years.