We can just have booming times—they don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got a dog—and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet I don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon I'd better put 'em on, but I'd ruther not, it's so warm. Are you all ready? All right. Come along, old hoss. Oh yeah, that. The Grangerford family may be pleasant and respectable, but they live in a world of fear and hate.
They've had a hardcore feud going on with the nearby Shepherdson clan for about thirty years, and each family is intent on killing off the other, one by one, until no one's left standing. Even Buck Grangerford, a boy around Huck's age, has violence on his mind all the time. It ends, as you can probably guess, tragically. Buck explains feuds: "by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud" [18]. What's up with this family? Well, just like slavery, not all traditions should be respected.
The South may have nice houses and great sweet tea, but it also has some nasty history. A warmhearted man, the colonel owns a very large estate with over a hundred slaves. Everyone in the household treats the colonel with great courtesy.
The Grangerford children include Bob, the oldest; then Tom; then Charlotte, age twenty-five; Sophia, age twenty; and finally Buck. All of them are beautiful. One day, Buck tries to shoot a young man named Harney Shepherdson but misses. Huck asks why Buck wanted to kill Harney, and Buck explains that the Grangerfords are in a feud with a neighboring clan of families, the Shepherdsons.
No one can remember how or why the feud started, but in the last year, two people have been killed, including a fourteen-year-old Grangerford.
The two families attend church together and hold their rifles between their knees as the minister preaches about brotherly love. After church one day, Sophia Grangerford has Huck retrieve a copy of the Bible from the pews. Huck finds Jim there, much to his surprise.
Jim says that he followed Huck to the shore the night they were wrecked but did not dare call out for fear of being caught. Some slaves found the raft, but Jim reclaimed it by threatening the slaves and telling them that it belonged to his white master.
In the woods, Huck finds Buck and a nineteen-year-old Grangerford in a gunfight with the Shepherdsons. Both of the Grangerfords are killed.
Deeply disturbed, Huck heads for Jim and the raft, and the two shove off downstream. Huck and Jim continue down the river. On one of his solo expeditions in the canoe, Huck comes upon two men on shore fleeing some trouble and begging to be let onto the raft.
Huck takes them a mile downstream to safety.
0コメント