Summary: Chapter 26
The dauphin arranges to stay in the Wilks house. Huck
has supper with Joanna, the youngest Wilks sister, whom he calls
“the hare-lip” because of her cleft lip, a birth defect. Joanna
tests Huck’s knowledge of England, and he makes several slips, forgetting
that he is supposedly from Sheffield and that the dauphin is supposed
to be a Protestant minister. Finally, Joanna asks if he has made
the entire thing up. Joanna’s sisters, Mary Jane and Susan, interrupt
and instruct Joanna to be courteous to their guest, and she graciously apologizes.
Huck feels terrible about letting such sweet women be swindled and
resolves to get them their money back. He goes to the con men’s
room to search for the money and hides when they enter. The duke
wants to leave town that night, but the dauphin convinces him to
stay until they have stolen all the family’s property. After the men
leave the room, Huck finds the $6,000 in gold, takes it to his sleeping
cubby, and then sneaks out late at night.
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Summary: Chapter 27
Huck hides the sack of money in Peter Wilks’s coffin as
Mary Jane, crying, enters the front room where her dead father’s
body lies. Huck, who doesn’t get another opportunity to remove the
money safely, worries about what will happen to it. The next day,
a dog barking in the cellar disrupts the funeral. The undertaker
slips out and returns after a “whack” is heard from downstairs.
In a voice that everyone present can hear, he whispers that the
dog has caught a rat. In the next moment, though, Huck watches with
horror as the undertaker seals the coffin without looking inside.
Huck realizes he will never know whether the duke and the dauphin
have gotten the money back. He wonders if he should write to Mary
Jane after he has left town to tell her to have the coffin dug up.
Saying he will take the Wilks girls to England, the dauphin
sells off the estate and the slaves, sending a slave mother to New
Orleans and her two sons to Memphis. The scene at the grief-stricken
family’s separation is heart-rending, and the Wilks women are upset. Huck
comforts himself with the knowledge that the slave family will be
reunited in a week or so when the duke and the dauphin are exposed.
When the con men question Huck about the missing money, he manages
to make them think the Wilks family slaves were responsible for
the disappearance.
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Summary: Chapter 28
The next morning, Huck finds Mary Jane crying in her bedroom.
All her joy about the trip to England has given way to distress
over the separation of the slave family. Touched, Huck unthinkingly
blurts out that the family will be reunited in less than two weeks.
Mary Jane, overjoyed, asks Huck to explain. Huck feels uneasy, for
he has little experience telling the truth while in a predicament.
He tells Mary Jane the truth but asks her to wait at a friend’s
house until later that night in order to give him time to get away,
because the fate of another person (Jim) also hangs in the balance.
Huck instructs Mary Jane to leave without seeing her “uncles,” for
her innocent face would give away their secret. Huck leaves her
a note with the location of the money. She promises to remember
him forever and to pray for him. In retrospect, Huck tells us that
he has never seen Mary Jane since but that he thinks of her often.
Shortly after Mary Jane leaves the house, Huck
encounters Susan and Joanna and tells them that their sister has
gone to see a sick friend. Joanna cross-examines him about this,
but he manages to trick them into staying quiet about the whole
thing. Later that day, a mob interrupts the auction of the family’s
possessions. Among the mob are two men who claim to be the real
Harvey and William Wilks.
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Analysis: Chapters 26–28
These chapters mark several milestones in Huck’s
development, as he acts on his conscience for the first time and
takes concrete steps to thwart the schemes of the duke and the dauphin.
Although Huck has shown an increasing maturity and sense of morality
as the novel has progressed, he has been tentative in taking sides
or action, frequently hedging his bets and qualifying the statements
he makes. He has chosen not to challenge or expose the duke and
the dauphin even though he has been aware from the start that they
are frauds. Earlier, watching as the con men scam the Wilks sisters
in Chapter 24, Huck tells him that the sight makes him ashamed
to be part of the human race. Though this strong statement is, in
itself, a step for Huck, he does not act on it until now. The first
concrete action Huck takes is his retrieval of the $6,000 in
gold, which he places in Wilks’s coffin.
