CHAPTER VI

Pap recovers and drags Judge Thatcher to court to seize Huck’s money, while punishing Huck for attending school. Huck keeps going to school to spite Pap and borrows small sums from Judge Thatcher to stave off beatings, as Pap repeatedly gets drunk and jailed.

When the Widow Douglas warns Pap away from her house, Pap vows to show control. He ambushes Huck, kidnaps him upriver, and hides him in a remote Illinois cabin. Pap locks Huck in, lives by hunting and fishing, and spends his trade on whiskey, beating Huck when drunk. A rescue attempt from the widow is driven off at gunpoint, and Huck grows used to the woods’ freedom—except for the violence.

Pap’s abuse worsens and his absences lengthen, so Huck resolves to escape. He discovers a hidden rusty saw and begins cutting through a bottom log behind a blanket screen. Pap returns, furious over legal delays and threats that Huck might be taken back by the widow, and rants against the government and a free Black man, swelling Huck’s urgency to leave.

After bringing in supplies, Huck plans to flee that night if Pap gets drunk enough. Pap drinks, then falls into delirium tremens, hallucinating snakes and devils. In terror and rage he mistakes Huck for the Angel of Death, chases him with a clasp-knife, and vows to kill him, but collapses and dozes at the door.

With Pap blocking the exit, Huck quietly takes down the loaded gun, aims it across the barrel toward Pap, and waits, fully committed to escaping at the first chance.