Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
Contents
CHAPTER XXI
Overview
The duke and king rehearse a makeshift Shakespeare program to raise money, signaling a new scheme. In an Arkansas town, the drunk Boggs publicly insults Colonel Sherburn, who coldly warns him to stop by one o’clock. When Boggs continues, Sherburn shoots him dead, shocking the town and provoking calls for a lynching.
Summary
After sunrise the raft keeps moving. The king and the duke, refreshed by a swim, set to work staging scenes from Romeo and Juliet. The duke coaches the king’s delivery and swordplay, adding encores like the Highland fling and Hamlet’s soliloquy, which the duke declaims with great flourish.
Laying to in an Arkansas river town, Huck observes the streets full of mud, loafers, and dogs, sketching a rough, idle crowd that craves spectacle. As noon nears, country families arrive, drinking and brawling swell, and the streets clog with wagons and onlookers.
Old Boggs, a habitual drunk, gallops in, shouting threats and declaring he has come to kill Colonel Sherburn. The well-dressed Sherburn steps out, calmly warns Boggs he will tolerate insults only until one o’clock, then returns inside. Townsmen try to send Boggs home, even fetching his daughter, but Boggs keeps raging.
As Boggs is finally being hurried away on foot, Sherburn appears with a raised pistol. Despite Boggs’s plea, Sherburn fires twice, killing him in front of his daughter and a gathering crowd. Boggs is carried to a drugstore, where he dies as townspeople swarm for a view.
The town seethes with retellings and reenactments of the shooting until voices call for Sherburn’s lynching. Momentum builds as the crowd rushes off, stripping clotheslines for a hanging, leaving Huck amid a volatile, vengeful mob.
Who Appears
- Huckleberry FinnNarrator observing the duke and king’s rehearsals and the Arkansas town’s events, including Boggs’s shooting.
- The DukeFraud posing as nobility; directs Shakespeare rehearsals and performs Hamlet’s soliloquy with theatrical gusto.
- The KingConman partner; practices Romeo, swordplay, and encores under the duke’s coaching.
- Colonel SherburnProud, composed townsman who warns Boggs to stop by one o’clock, then shoots him dead.
- BoggsHabitual drunk who rides into town threatening Sherburn and is killed after ignoring the warning.
- Boggs’s daughterSixteen-year-old who tries to reach her father; arrives as he is shot and mourns him.
- Townspeople and loafersIdle, excitable crowd that gawks at the shooting and quickly swells into a lynch mob.