by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 29, 2009   Last Updated: February 12, 2009

What happened after Huckleberry Finn "lit out for the territory?" Mark Twain began a sequel to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," describing the next installment of the wild orphan's adventures. (Huck and Tom Sawyer join a wagon train with their friend Jim, a freed slave.) Twain began the book in 1884 - the same year he'd first published "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." In 1998, the University of California Press uncovered the unfinished manuscript of that book - and published it as part of a Twain collection.

It's a wonderful glimpse into Twain's unfinished works, and in the sequel, his narration uses the same folksy dialect. "That other book which I made before, was named 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,'" announces Huck in the story's first paragraph. "Maybe you remember about it. But if you don't, it don't make no difference, because it ain't got nothing to do with this one." He recaps the end of the previous book, then says Tom Sawyer was getting restless, "...though as for me, betwixt lazying around and pie, I hadn't no choice, and wouldn't know which to take..." The book opens with Huck and Jim having "Plenty to eat and nothing to do," but Tom urging them to head west.

They buy some good Missouri mules and stock up on provisions - Huckleberry Finn has never seen a match - and Tom leaves a note for his Aunt Polly, telling her not to worry. They cross the woods, traveling by night to avoid people who might recognize them, but eventually they reach level land and join up with a wagon train. They "leave the United States" to enter the great Plains - remember, the book is set in the 1840s - and soon meet a camp of "Injuns." ("Tom was powerful glad.")

It's a fascinating American moment, describing the young city-born, pioneers meeting another culture. They share a pipe and give sugar and tobacco to the Indians, and one woman in their party even bandages a wounded ankle. They enjoy a horse race with their new friends. But there's a dark surprise in store. "I see that other Injun coming on a pony, and driving the other ponies and all our mules and horses ahead of him, and he let off a long wild whoop, and the minute he done that, the Injun that had a gun, the one that Peggy fixed, shot her father through the head..." The rest of the story will describe the boys lost in the wilderness, accompanied by an experienced scout named Brace who'd survived the Indians' massacre.

Brace's fiancee has taken as a prisoner, and so was Jim the feed slave. (Tom shows the same loyalty that made Huckleberry Finn so moving, saying "I got Jim into this scrape, and so of course I ain't going to turn back towards home...") Brace had urged his fiancee to take her own life if she was ever captured by the Indians, and Huck lies and tells him that that's true. It's been suggested that that's why Twain never finished this novel - like Brace, he knew too much about Indian warfare, and couldn't imagine a happy ending.

The book contains 10 other stories - only one of which is complete. There's "Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy" and a two-page fragment called "Huck Finn." ("Well, I had a noble big bullfrog that I had traded a hymn-book for....") Huck narrates the beginning of a story about a practical joke gone bad, and it's emblematic of the stories in this collection. It reads like vintage Twain - special moments rescued from his private papers.

And it's tantalizing to wonder how he might have finished them.

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