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We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.
Huck Finn escapes from his alcoholic father by faking his own death and so begins his journey through the Deep South, seeking independence and freedom. On his travels, Huck meets an escaped slave, Jim, who is a wanted man, and together they journey down the Mississippi River. Raising the timeless and universal l issues of prejudice, bravery and hope, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was and still is considered the great American novel.
So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you didnt bring a man with you; thats one mistake, and the other is that you didnt come in the dark and fetch your masks. You brought part of a manBuck Harkness, thereand if you hadnt had him to start you, youd a taken it out in blowing.
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You didnt want to come. The average man dont like trouble and danger. you dont like trouble and danger. But if only half a man like Buck Harkness, thereshouts Lynch him! lynch him! youre afraid to back downafraid youll be found out to be what you arecowardsand so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-mans coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things youre going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; thats what an army isa mob; they dont ght with courage thats born in them, but with courage thats borrowed from their mass, and from their ofcers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath 149 H U C K L E B E R R Y F I N
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N pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynchings going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come theyll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leavveand take your half-a-man with youtossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this. The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking tolerable cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didnt want to.
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I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because there aint no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from home and amongst strangers that way. You cant be too careful. I aint opposed to spending money on circuses when there aint no other way, but there aint no use in wasting it on them.
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