The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapters 30-33
Becky and her family return home. She gets the picnic she promised a while ago up and going. She tells her mom that she'll stay the night with the Harpers, and then everyone goes. On the way, Tom convinces Becky to change her plans, and stay at Widow Douglas' house instead.
Everyone has a good time at the picnic. They play in the woods, eat, and then go exploring a cave with vast mazes in it. And then all the kids go home tired.
Huck hears the ferry-boat carrying the kids come home. He spots Injun Joe and his companion moving off with a bundle a few hours later. Huck follows them until they aren't far from Widow Douglas' house. Then Huck hears Injun Joe's plan for revenge... he's going to hurt Widow Douglas to take revenge on her dead husband!
Huck quickly runs off to the closest home, which is of an old Welshman and his sons. He makes them promise not to reveal him as the news-teller, and then tells them how Widow Douglas is in danger. The family goes off to save her.
Huck follows for a bit, but stops before re-entering the woods. He hears gun-shot explosions and a cry. And then he runs off in fear.
He comes back to the old Welshman's place in the morning to hear the story. The family tried to sneak up on the bad guys, but the old Welshman sneezed. The family tried to capture Injun Joe & Companion, but they got away. The Welshman & Co. picked up the bundle, however... and it was only a bundle of burgular (sp?) tools.
The old Welshman's sons go to join the authorities in catching Injun Joe and his companion. While they are alone, Huck is given breakfast, and the two talk. Huck doesn't tell the old Welshman the whole truth, but the old Welshman manages to get that the Spaniard is really Injun Joe!
Then a bunch of crowds come to figure out what happened. The old Welshman keeps Huck's secret, but starts a curiousity of "who told him about the danger"? He tells the story over and over again to the people who show up.
Things soon get hectic. Tom and Becky are discovered missing! Everyone is thrown into a panic and upset states. Kids are questioned, but no one even remembers seeing them on the ferry-boat on the return home.
People go to the cave to search it. For days, there are no positive signs of the children. Hope begins to disappear, and people begin to stop searching.
What did happened to Tom and Becky? Chapter 32 covers this. The two went off exploring when a game of hide-and-seek stopped being fun to them. Tom discovered a natural staircase behind a waterfall, and the duo went down to explore.
They have fun for a while, even remembering to mark their paths. But they have a bad run-in with a bunch of bats. They soon reach a subterrainean (sp?) lake, and decide to get out. But they don't know the way out!
Soon, the kids become hopelessly lost. They find a place with a small stream which becomes their "headquarters" of sorts while they're stuck. Tom starts exploring side-tunnels off of this place.
Problems arise though. The kids' food and light runs out, and they loose hope. But that's not the worst problem... Tom spots Injun Joe in the cave!!!
Tom eventually finds a way out. The kids get out, and get picked up by some folks in a skiff. They sleep at the skiff-folks' place, and then are taken home in the middle of the night.
Tom and Becky take a couple of days to recover. And they aren't the only ones in need of recovery... Huck fell ill the day the kids were discovered missing. Tom goes to visit him very day after he finds out and is allowed to visit his friend.
One day, on the way to visit Huck, Tom stops to check on Becky first. He learns that Judge Thatcher had the cave's door triple-locked and covered with some sort of iron, and that the Judge keeps the keys. Tom freaks out, and when he can talk again, he reveals that Injun Joe is in that cave!!!
Finally! Tom finally tells a grown-up where Injun Joe is! That was a good and smart thing to do, though he should have done it sooner.
But why did he tell them now? Up to this point, he kept silent because of greed for that treasure. And yet, he just rattled when Judge Thatcher tells him that the cave's door has been locked up. The treasure, or desire for it, wasn't mentioned in this scene. So the reason for Tom's sudden rattling is unclear.
The cave sounded like an amazing place. The thought of a vast maze, with a second level of mazes, sounds cool and amazing. And there is the crystal pool which sounds pretty neat...
However, it sounds like an absolute terrifying place to get lost! Mark Twain did a good job in that sense. He relayed the kids' terror very well.
He also did a good job with relaying the hopelessness and desperation. I liked how Becky was even ready to risk the bats again, just as long as they got the right way out! That was so human and realistic!
Becky shouldn't have changed her mind about where she was staying. She told her mom she was staying at the Harpers, and that's where she should have stayed! While it didn't matter in the long run, if she hadn't gotten lost in the cave, she would have spared her mother some unneeded worry if she had!
Tom should have let Huck know he wasn't planning on spending the night at his house. After all, they had agreed to a plan. It would have been only fair to let Huck know that he wouldn't be keeping his part of the bargain, and that things would have to be different for that night.
Mark Twain did a wonderful job at the suspense and confusion in the panic-over-and-search-for-the-missing-children scenes. Even I didn't know where the children were! It made things perfectly confusing. Normally, I would condemn confusion in a book, but this was really the only set of scenes in this book where it worked for the book's advantages.
And Mark Twain then made a very reasonable explanation. The reason the kids couldn't be found was because they were in a lower level, and its entrance was hidden by a waterfall. And the cave was vast, and had a ton of tunnels and entrances as well.
But it is a little confusing. The men were searching the cave top to bottom. And it sounded very easy to reach the waterfall. So why didn't the men find the waterfall, or the stairs behind it? That was a little confusing.
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