We thought that three more nights would take us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes into the Mississippi. There we would sell the raft, take a steamboat up the Ohio to the free states, and our troubles would be over.
On the second night a fog began to come down, and we decided to tie up at a small island, because you can’t travel in a fog. I paddled ahead in the canoe with the rope and tied it around a young tree, but the current was strong, and the raft pulled the tree out by the roots and floated away. I saw the fog closing in, and I was so scared that I couldn’t move. Then there was no raft in sight. You couldn’t see twenty yards.
I went after the raft, and in a minute I was out in the solid white fog, with no more idea where I was going than a dead man. I shouted and listened. Far away I heard a small shout, and my heart jumped. I went after it, but the next time I heard it, it was to the right of me, and then to the left, and then behind me. Nothing looks right or sounds right in a fog. Suddenly a high bank came at me out of the white, with big trees on it like gray ghosts, and the current threw me past it. Then I understood: it was a big island, and Jim had gone down the other side of it.
If you think it isn’t lonely out in a fog like that by yourself at night, try it once. For a long time I shouted, but at last I couldn’t hear a sound anywhere. I thought Jim had hit something and it was all over with him. I was so tired that I lay down in the canoe, just to close my eyes for a minute.
When I woke up, the stars were shining and the fog was gone. Far down the river I saw a black spot on the water. It was the raft. I paddled up to it and climbed quietly on board. Jim was sitting there asleep, with his head down between his knees. One oar was broken off, and the raft was covered with leaves and branches and dirt.
I lay down right in front of Jim, stretched and said, “Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Goodness, is that you, Huck? You aren’t dead? You aren’t drowned? Let me look at you, child. It’s too good to be true, honey!”
“What’s the matter with you, Jim? Have you been drinking? Why are you talking as if I had gone away?”
“Huck Finn, you look me in the eye. Didn’t the rope pull loose and leave you behind in the fog? And didn’t we shout and shout until we got lost among the islands?”
“What fog? Jim, I haven’t seen any fog or any islands. I’ve been sitting here talking with you all night, until you went to sleep about ten minutes ago. So of course you’ve been dreaming.”
“But how could I dream all that in ten minutes?”
“Well, you did, because none of it happened. I’ve been here all the time.”
Jim didn’t say anything for about five minutes. Then he said, “Well, then, I guess I did dream it, Huck. But no dream ever made me so tired before.”
He told me the whole dream, just as it happened, only bigger, and explained what every part of it meant. The fog was our troubles, he said, and the big clear river at the end was the free states. We would get there if we kept out of trouble.
The sky was getting light now. “Well, that’s all explained very well, Jim,” I said, “but what do these things mean?” And I pointed to the leaves and dirt on the raft and the broken oar.
Jim looked at the dirt, then at me, then back at the dirt. When he understood at last, he looked at me hard, without a smile, and said:
“What do they mean? I’m going to tell you. When I was all worn out from calling for you, and I went to sleep, my heart was almost broken because you were lost, and I didn’t care any more what happened to me or the raft. And when I woke up and found you back again, safe and well, the tears came, and I could have got down on my knees and kissed your foot, I was so thankful. And all you were thinking about was how you could make a fool of old Jim with a lie. That dirt there is trash. And trash is what people are who put dirt on the heads of their friends and make them ashamed.”
Then he got up slowly and went into the shelter without another word. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean that I could almost have kissed his foot to make him take it back.
It was fifteen minutes before I could make myself go and humble myself to a Black man, but I did it, and I was never sorry for it afterwards. I never played any more mean tricks on him, and I wouldn’t have played that one if I had known it would make him feel that way.