Summary
Huck and Jim run away from the murderous crowd at the revival and toward the town. They pause when they see a wanted poster with a drawing of Jim; there’s a $300 reward. They run on, but Jim sees the King and the Duke stop at the same poster. Jim and Huck slide down to the river and untie their raft before the conmen can catch up. Huck asks if they should go back for the men. Jim thinks that Huck is so innocent. Rain falls as Huck and Jim continue down the river. Jim says he knew Huck’s mother when they were young, and that she was nice. Jim says it’s dangerous for a slave to comment on whether she was pretty. Then they see a steamboat engulfed in flames.
Eventually, the King and the Duke catch up to Huck and Jim. They propose a plan to sell Jim, who will escape, and then sell him again, on and on. Huck refuses to go along with it, prompting the conmen to slap Huck. The Duke removes his leather belt and tells Jim to remove his pants. When Jim refuses, the Dukes whips Jim with the belt. Jim resists showing any emotion until he buckles to his knees.
The river is choppy, so the group stays on shore. The conmen talk about getting some liquor in the next town they see, while Huck and Jim catch fish. They walk a long way to get to the outskirts of a town; Jim is relieved to see slave women and children digging up potatoes from the soil. The conmen tell Jim to walk straight so he doesn’t appear injured. When they find a saloon, the conmen tell Huck and Jim to sit and wait outside. Huck suggests running, but Jim worries the men will hang him and beat Huck once they catch up to them. Huck and Jim agree that their legs are so tired from walking that they don’t have the energy to run.
The Duke and King finish in the saloon, having decided to stay at an inn up the road. They first tie Jim and Huck to a horse stable where they can sleep in hay. The conmen command a slave named Easter to put a shackle and chain on Jim’s ankle. After the conmen leave, Easter unlocks the shackle and tells Jim he’ll put it on again in the morning. Easter knows Jim won’t run because he can see the whipping wounds on his leg. Once Huck appears to be asleep, Jim and Easter drop their slave vernacular voices. Easter says it looks to him like Huck isn’t only ethnically white. Easter goes off, and Huck reveals that he had been listening. He tells Jim he understands why Jim speaks in a different voice to him; he says it makes sense. Jim calls him a smart boy.
The Duke and the King wake up Jim with angry shouts about how Jim is no longer shackled. Easter rushes out and pretends Jim must have slipped loose. The Duke takes a horse from a carriage and hits Easter as punishment for not putting the shackle on hard enough. Easter’s arm and torso bleed profusely. The commotion draws the attention of Mr. Wiley, Easter’s master. He is angry at the Duke and the King for harming his slave. To appease Wiley, the conmen agreed to leave Jim there so he can work as a farrier—someone who trims horse hooves and makes horseshoes—until Easter has recovered from his injuries. The Duke and the King take Huck with them to do “business” in the next town.
Along with Wiley and Easter, Wiley acts friendly, telling Jim he will treat and feed him well if he does good work. Wiley goes off. Easter says Wiley’s not such a bad man, aside from owning slaves. Easter instructs Jim how to make horseshoes, saying Jim, who has never done any blacksmithing, has to make a dozen before sundown. While Jim heats the coals and iron, Easter says a slave was lynched up the river because he was accused of stealing a pencil. Jim feels the pencil in his pocket. Easter instructs him to let the hammer bounce as he shapes the red-hot iron rod into a horseshoe shape on the anvil. Later, Wiley checks on their progress. Easter leads Jim in a song about hammering. A group of white men appear at the stable; they are dressed in dark suits and carry black cases of various sizes.
Daniel Decateur Emmett introduces himself and the group as the Virginia Minstrels. He hands Wiley tickets to their performance at the town hall. Emmett offers $200 to buy Jim, saying Jim has a lovely voice and explaining that their tenor is missing, likely having fallen off the train while drunk. Wiley does not understand how a slave can perform with them. Emmet explains that they perform in blackface, so Jim will blend in. Though Wiley technically doesn’t own Jim, he agrees to the sale and writes a bill of sale. Wiley and Jim are shocked when, after handing over the cash, Emmett shakes Jim’s hand. The group of minstrels slap Jim on the back, welcoming him into the group.
At the Virginia Minstrels’ camp outside of town, a trombone player named Cassidy gives Jim his first-ever cup of coffee. He is pleased when Jim says he likes it. Cassidy speaks as though in character as a minstrel, trying to match Jim’s affected way of speaking. Emmett says he and the group are against slavery, and considers the $200 he spent on Jim to be him hiring Jim, not buying him. Jim has difficulty understanding this statement, considering Emmett had asked for a bill of sale. The men’s generosity and deferential attitude toward Jim overwhelm Jim. After they rehearse some songs, Jim dresses in wool trousers that sting his leg wounds. He needs help putting on a button-up shirt and tie, neither of which he has ever worn. They have no shoes for Jim, so a heavy-set man named Norman decides they’ll put black shoe polish on his feet.
Norman applies boot black to Jim’s face, and white circles around his mouth and eyes. He explains that this is so the audience thinks Jim is white underneath the blackface makeup. When alone, Norman tells Jim he can “drop the slave talk.” It takes Jim a moment to understand that Norman—ostensibly a white man—is a light-skinned former slave who passes as white. Norman says that none of the other minstrel performers know. Jim is the first known black person to perform with them. Norman says he is in the band to earn enough money to buy his wife in Virginia.
Jim walks into town with the Virginia Minstrels. They form a line and sing songs in the exaggerated vernacular Jim uses when speaking to white people. The white townspeople come out of their houses to watch the performance. Even though he knows the crowd’s laughter is at the expense of the black people the performers are mocking, Jim has never felt such admiration from white people before. After the performance, the troupe disperses among the white people in the crowd to talk. Jim panics, worried someone will find out he isn’t white himself. A young woman named Polly chats to him, complimenting his voice and asking about other towns he’s been too. Her father approaches and touches Jim’s hair, saying it’s a very realistic wig. Emmett asks the man not to touch Jim’s wig, saying it’s the most expensive one the troupe owns. Norman calls Jim away. Along together, they agree it was terrifying to almost be found out. Jim reflects that he’d like to run, because he isn’t sure if he can trust Emmett, who might claim ownership over him regardless of what he said about being against slavery.
Jim sleeps in a tent next to Norman and a clarinet player called Big Mike. He wakes to find Polly’s father touching his hair, suspicious of the “wig.” The man threatens to call the sheriff; Emmett threatens to tell the man’s daughter that he was touching a strange man. The implication that there is something sexual about the man’s interest in Jim unnerves the man, and he leaves, but not without saying there’s something up with Jim’s wig. The troupe takes down their tents and gathers their belongings. Jim is confused when Emmett apologizes to him. Jim says it’s his fault. Emmett says he’s the reason, but it’s not his fault. Jim asks for clarification about Emmett’s ownership over him. Emmett claims not to own him, but says Jim owes him the $200 he spent to “hire” him. Emmett says a fair wage is one dollar per performance, so Jim has 199 performances left. Jim realizes that he is still a bonded slave, just no longer a chattel slave. At the next town, the men set up camp. Emmett decides it will be unsafe for Jim to perform with them there: the townspeople will lynch Jim if they find out he is black. Left alone, Jim quickly grabs bread and Emmett’s song notebook. He runs into the woods to escape.
Analysis
In another allusion to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Everett shows Huck and Jim briefly traveling with the King and the Duke, two conmen. While the original narrative emphasizes Huck’s and Jim’s gullibility when the men lie about being descended from European royalty, Everett’s version of events depicts Jim immediately understanding the men are con artists but playing dumb to avoid giving up the fact he is much smarter than he appears to be. With this scene, Everett satirizes Twain by showing Jim’s interiority, which is kept at a distance from the reader in the original narrative.
Everett continues developing the theme of duality when Jim and Huck meet Easter, an enslaved blacksmith who perceives that there is something unique about Huck. Although Easter is initially shocked and delighted by the novelty of Huck, a white boy, thanking him, Easter questions Jim about Huck’s ethnicity, suggesting he sees non-white features in the boy’s face. Jim is quick to disregard Easter’s perceptive comments by changing the subject. However, Easter continues to ply Jim with questions, asking if he taught Huck how to pass. This scene is significant because it lays the ground for the revelation that Huck, unbeknownst to him, also has a dual identity as Jim’s biological son.
Jim and Huck are separated again when Jim is loaned to Easter’s master, who sells Jim to the Virginia Minstrels, a group of singers who perform racist songs while wearing blackface. Although their entire performance makes fun of and perpetuates—or invents—stereotypes about black people, the minstrels treat Jim almost as an equal; some even practice their slave dialect by emulating his speaking style. Jim is confused by the paradox of having been purchased by a man who claims to not believe in slavery. This odd conflict between the minstrels’ purported values and their actions puts Jim on edge, as he isn’t sure whether he can trust them.
The theme of duality comes up again when, in an instance of situational irony, Jim learns that Norman, one of the performers, is actually an escaped slave whose light skin enables him to pass as white. Existing under layers of absurdity, Norman is a black man who pretends to be a white man who puts on blackface to pretend to be a black man—all in the name of earning enough money to purchase his wife and free her from slavery.
While it seems that Jim at least has an ally within the group, he soon learns that his suspicion that he cannot trust Emmett may be well founded. After his first performance with the group, Jim understands that the minstrels are too busy mingling with the audience to understand that the white townspeople will likely lynch Jim if they discover his true identity. This nearly happens when Polly’s father visits Jim in his tent to investigate whether Jim’s too-authentic “wig” is actually his real hair. Emmett also clarifies his statements about “hiring” Jim to perform with the group, prompting Jim to realize Emmett has merely made a distinction between outright ownership over Jim and turning Jim into an indentured laborer who is unlikely ever to be able to pay back Everett the $200 he spent on Jim. At the first chance he gets, Jim flees the group, having stolen Emmett’s notebook so he can use the paper for his own writing.
