CHAPTER XXXV

Before breakfast, Huck and Tom collect fox-fire for dim light and discuss rescuing Jim. Tom complains the setup is too easy and imagines needed obstacles, proposing to saw the bed-leg, hide sawdust, and even wishing for a moat. He briefly considers sawing Jim’s leg but rejects it as unnecessary and unsuitable.

Tom insists Jim must have a rope ladder hidden in a pie and a prison journal kept on a shirt, written with a laboriously made pen and ink from blood or iron-rust and tears. He also wants tin plates for unreadable messages, because that’s how “authorities” do escapes. Huck objects with practical alternatives, but Tom dismisses them as irregular.

They borrow—Tom calls it steal— a sheet and a white shirt, stash the fox-fire, and debate the morality of stealing. Tom claims prisoners have a right to steal what’s needed for escape, though he later rebukes Huck for taking a watermelon that wasn’t for the plan.

Planning tools, Tom forbids picks and shovels as too easy, demanding case-knives for digging, as in adventure tales. He cites legendary, years-long efforts but concedes they must hurry before Uncle Silas hears from New Orleans and advertises Jim. They agree to dig fast but pretend it took decades.

Huck suggests a real saw-blade, but Tom rejects it as unregular. Tom orders three case-knives—one to turn into a saw—and Huck smouches them, committing them to Tom’s theatrical escape scheme.