So I told the Phelpses that I would go into town to get my bags, which were at the boat station. I hurried up the road and before I was halfway to town, there was Tom Sawyer coming along.

We all sat there talking and I could answer all their questions about the Sawyer family. I was feeling really happy about this when suddenly I heard a boat on the river. "Tom could be on that boat," I thought, "and he's going to walk in here and call out my name before I can stop him. I've got to go and meet him."

When I heard that, I nearly fell through the floor, but it was a big piece of luck. It was easy for me to be Tom Sawyer because Tom was my best friend. He and his brother Sid lived with their Aunt Polly up in St Petersburg, and I knew all about them. Now I learnt that Aunt Polly had a sister, who was Mrs Phelps. She and her husband were Tom's Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas. And Tom was coming down south by boat to stay with them for a bit.

When he saw me, his mouth fell open and he looked a bit white in the lace. "Aren't you dead?" he said. "Everybody said that you were murdered!"

"I'm not dead yet," I said, "but listen…" I told him about my adventures, and Tom loved all that. Then I told him about the Phelpses and that they thought I was Tom Sawyer. "What shall we do?" I asked him.

Tom thought for a bit, and then he said, "I know. You take my bags and say they're yours. I'll come to the house in about half an hour."

Well, Aunt Sally was very pleased to see Tom and Sid. She thought it was wonderful. She and Uncle Silas were really nice people.

So I went back to the house with the bags, and Tom came along half an hour later. He knocked on the door and when his Aunt Sally opened it, he said he was Sid, Tom's brother. He wanted his visit to be a surprise for his dear old Aunt Sally, he said.

"All right," I said, "but there's another thing. You know old Miss Watson's slave Jim, who ran away? Well, he's a prisoner here, and I'm going to help him escape."

"Jim?" Tom said. "But he's --" Then he stopped and thought. "Right. I'll help, too, I'll make a really good plan." He looked very excited.

When we were alone later, Tom and I talked about Jim's escape. I said I had a plan, and Tom listened to it.

So he told me his plan. I knew it would be a good one because Tom's plans are always crazy and exciting.

"It's a good plan," he said when I finished. "But it's too easy! It's got to be a real escape, like a real adventure in a story book. So we want something difficult and dangerous. Now, listen to this…"

And we sure had a lot of fun with that plan! We knew that Jim was locked up in a hut outside the house. Every night we got out through our bedroom window and dug a hole right under the wall of the hut. It took us a week, and it was hard work. We talked to Jim secretly and told him about the plan, and he was really pleased.

We also wrote secret letters to everybody. Tom said that people always do this in books. We wrote that there was a gang of slave-thieves coming up from the south. They wanted to steal Jim and get the three hundred dollars from his owner. Well, the Phelpses and their friends got very excited, and on the night of the escape I went into the sitting-room, and there was a crowd of men in there -- all with guns!

"Now, Jim," I cried, "you're a free man!" We were all very happy, but Tom was the happiest of all, because he had a bullet in his leg.

Well, there wasn't time to think about it because it all happened so quickly. We got Jim out through the hole under the wall, and began to run down to the river. But the men heard us and came after us. They began to shoot, and so we ran as fast as we could to the canoe. We got in it and went over to Spanish Island. My raft was there, and our plan was to escape on that and go on down river.

I ran and told Tom, and he said that this was really good. "It's a real adventure now, all right," he said, very excited. "Perhaps they'll come after us, and shoot, and we'll all get killed!"

"You listen to me, Tom Sawyer. You say I'm a free man now, and perhaps I am. But old Jim is not going to run away and leave one of his friends with a bullet in his leg! So I'm staying right here until a doctor comes."

When Jim and I heard that, we weren't so happy. Tom wanted the adventure to go on, but Jim and I said that a doctor must look at Tom's leg. Tom was getting angry about this, but Jim said:

I didn't know what to say because Aunt Sally was listening, and before I could stop him, Tom went on:

I knew Jim would say that. He was a good, true friend, and you can't say that about many people.

Well, that was the end of the adventure, really. I went and found a doctor in the town. He was a kind old man, and he said he would go over to the island. But Tom's leg got very bad, and the next day the doctor and some other men carried Tom home to the Phelpses' house. They brought Jim too, and they locked him up in the hut again. But the doctor said, "Be kind to him, because he didn't run away and he stayed to help me with the boy."

When Tom woke up the next day, he felt better. I was in the room and he said to me, "Jim's all right, isn't he?"

They took Tom up to bed because his leg was really bad, and Aunt Sally sat with him while he slept. I didn't want to answer any questions so I kept out of everybody's way.

"We did it, Aunt Sally. Me and Tom here. We helped Jim escape." He told her all about the digging and everything, and Aunt Sally's mouth was opening and closing like a fish. Then she got really angry with Tom.

"That slave is locked up again and he's going to stay there. And if I catch you again --"

Well, that was a surprise to me and Aunt Sally! She thought Tom was crazy. "But Sid, why did you help him to escape, if he was free already?" she said.

Tom suddenly sat up in bed. "You can't do that!" he cried. "Jim was old Miss Watson's slave, but she died two months ago. Before she died, she wrote that she wanted Jim to be free, and not a slave any more. Jim's a free man, not a slave!"

"I wanted the adventure, of course!" said Tom. "We made a really exciting plan and… Oh my!… AUNT POLLY!"

Then Aunt Polly said to Tom, "You always were a terrible boy, Tom Sawyer, and I want to know --"

We turned round, and there was Tom's Aunt Polly in the doorway! That was the second big surprise. Aunt Sally was really pleased to see her sister, and jumped up to put her arms round her. I got under the bed as fast as I could. There was trouble coming for me and Tom, that was for sure.

"But Polly dear," said Aunt Sally, "this isn't Tom. It's Sid. Tom was here a minute ago. Where is he?"

"Where's Huck Finn, you mean," replied Aunt Polly. "Come out from under that bed, Huck Finn."

We got Jim out of the hut and Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas were really nice to him. Later, Tom, Jim and I had a long talk by ourselves. Tom talked and talked, and then he said, "Let's all three of us run away one night, and go and have adventures in the wild country down south."

"No," said Tom. "Your money's all there. Your Pop never came back."

So Tom and I had to explain everything. Aunt Polly said that Aunt Sally wrote and told her that Tom and Sid were there. She knew that it wasn't true, so she decided to come and find out what was happening. But she said that it was true about Miss Watson and that Jim was a free man now.

"No, and he won't come back, Huck," Jim said. "You remember that dead man on the river," when I said "Don't look at his face"? Well, that was your Pop. You can get your money when you want."

It sounded like a good plan to me. "The only thing is," I said, "I haven't got any money to buy the right clothes and things. All my money back in St Petersburg will be in Pop's pockets by now."

Tom's leg is almost better now, and I haven't got any more to write about. I'm really pleased about that because it was very difficult to write a book and I won't do it again. But I think I'm going to have to run away before the others, because Aunt Sally wants me to live with her. I'll have to sleep in a bed and wear clean clothes and learn to be good, and I can't do that again. I've done it once already.

The End

Yours Truly

Huck Finn