Splittin’
the
Raft
by
Scott Kaiser
©2007 by Scott Kaiser.
All rights reserved.
ScottKaiserShakespeare.com
==
Splittin’ the Raft, p.2
©2007 by Scott Kaiser
Splittin’
The
Raft
by
Scott Kaiser
CAST
WHITE WOMAN: Huck
BLACK MAN: Frederick Douglass, Jim
WHITE MAN: The Preacher, Child 1, Child 3, Pap, Ferry Boat Captain, Slave Trader,
Townsperson 1, Mrs. Loftus, Master Douglas, Parker, Man in the Skiff, the King, Uncle
Silas, Tom Sawyer
BLACK WOMAN: Widow Douglas, Child 2, Child 4, Judge Thatcher, Townsperson 2,
Mr. Loftus, ’Lizabeth, Jim’s Wife, John, the Duke, Boy on the Road, Aunt Sally,
Hightower
A MUSICIAN
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.3
©2007 by Scott Kaiser
PRODUCTION NOTES
A rustic, timeless space.
At the center of the space, a raised platform defines the raft.
A MUSICIAN sits upstage, surrounded by instruments and sound effects gadgets.
Props and costume pieces are arranged in various places around the space in full view of
the audience.
Everyone in the cast is involved in telling all of the story all of the time. No one exits the
stage once the action has begun. When not in a scene, members of the ensemble narrate,
facilitate costume changes, handle properties, sing, create sound effects, or watch
intently from the sidelines.
All costume changes are accomplished quickly and easily by exchanging simple icons,
like a hat, or a pair of glasses, or an apron, to represent each character. These changes
are done in full view of the audience.
While all four actors speak Huck’s narration at times, only WHITE WOMAN embodies,
or physicalizes, the character of HUCK.
While BLACK MAN plays the character of FREDERICK DOUGLASS throughout the
play, DOUGLASS must embody the character of JIM in order to illuminate the story of
Huck Finn from a black man’s perspective.
Unlike JIM, FREDERICK DOUGLASS speaks distinctly and gracefully, with no
discernable accent.
Dialectical spelling has been carefully transcribed from Twain’s book in order to inform
the actors’ choices. However, great care must be taken to ensure that the accents are not
overwrought to the point of stereotype, especially in the case of JIM.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.4
©2007 by Scott Kaiser
ACT ONE
(FREDERICK DOUGLASS appears, holding a book. He reads the title.)
DOUGLASS: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
(Opening the book and reading the inscription) To Mr. Frederick Douglass, in mutual
admiration; Very truly yours, Mark Twain.
(Now, speaking to the audience) Ladies and gentlemen, I feel exceedingly glad of the
opportunity now afforded me in presenting the claims of my brethren to so many who
have assembled here on the present occasion. I have nothing to commend me to your
consideration in the way of learning, nothing in the way of education to entitle me to your
attention; and you are aware that slavery is a very bad school for rearing teachers of
morality and religion. Twenty-one years of my life have been spent in slavery, and it will
not be strange if under such circumstances I should betray a deficiency of that refinement
which is seldom or ever found, except among persons that have experienced superior
advantages to those which I have enjoyed. But I will take it for granted that you know
something about the degrading influences of slavery, and that you will not expect great
things from me this evening, but simply such facts as I may be able to advance
immediately in connection with my own experience.
(Turning again to the book) Chapter One. You don’t know about me, without you have
read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"—but that ain’t no matter.
That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things
which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
(Considering the preface) Hmm.
(Again, to the audience) Now, the way that book winds up is this—
(HUCK appears.)
HUCK: Tom Sawyer and me found money that robbers had hidden in a cave, and it
made us rich.
BLACK WOMAN: Six thousand dollars apiece—
HUCK: —all gold.
WHITE MAN: It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up.
HUCK: Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a
day apiece, all the year round.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.5
BLACK WOMAN: The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she
would sivilize me.
(A church pew. The WIDOW DOUGLAS appears, holding HUCK’s hand.)
HUCK: But it was rough living in her house all the time, considering how dismal regular
and decent the widow was in all her ways.
(The PREACHER appears in his pulpit.)
WIDOW DOUGLAS/PREACHER: (Singing)
SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER,
WHERE BRIGHT ANGEL FEET HAVE TROD,
WITH ITS CRYSTAL TIDE FOREVER
FLOWING BY THE THRONE OF GOD?
(The WIDOW elbows HUCK, who joins in singing, off key.)
YES, WE’LL GATHER AT THE RIVER,
THE BEAUTIFUL, THE BEAUTIFUL RIVER;
GATHER WITH THE SAINTS AT THE RIVER,
THAT FLOWS BY THE THRONE OF GOD.
(The WIDOW and HUCK are seated, while the PREACHER prepares to launch into his
sermon.)
DOUGLASS: I have to inform you that the religion of the southern states, at this time, is
not only indifferent to the wrongs of slavery, it actually takes sides with the oppressors.
Many of its most eloquent Divines have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that
the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped
bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ;
and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.
PREACHER: (Holding up a bible) I draw my warrant from the scriptures of the Old and
New Testament, that the principle of holding the heathen in bondage is recognized by
God.
WIDOW DOUGLAS: Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry.
PREACHER: The twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus clearly and unequivocally establishes
the fact that slavery was sanctioned by God himself, and that buying, selling, holding,
and bequeathing slaves as property are regulations which are established by himself.
WIDOW DOUGLAS: Don’t scrunch up like that Huckleberry—set up straight.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.6
PREACHER: Slavery has existed from the days of those good old slave-holders and
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who are now in the kingdom of heaven), to the
time when the apostle Paul sent a runaway home to his master Philemon and wrote a
Christian and fraternal letter to this slave-holder, which we find still stands in the canon
of the Scriptures.
WIDOW DOUGLAS: Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry.
PREACHER: The relative duties of master and slave are taught in the Scriptures in the
same manner as those of parent and child, and husband and wife—and whosoever has a
conscience too tender to recognize this relation as lawful is “wise above what is written,”
and has sacrificed his Christian liberty of conscience, leaving the infallible word of God
for the fancies and doctrines of men, and surrendering his immortal soul to Satan, and the
everlasting fires of hell.
HUCK: I wish I was there.
(An audible gasp. The WIDOW smacks HUCK. The sermon over, she rises, and drags
HUCK by the wrist to the front door of the church.)
WIDOW: Huckleberry Finn, it was a wicked thing to say, truly wicked; Why, I wouldn’t
say such a thing for the whole world.
(HUCK and the WIDOW leave the church and are walking home.)
DOUGLASS: She went on and told me all about the good place—
WIDOW: Blessed Jesus!
HUCK: —how all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a
harp and sing, forever and ever.
WIDOW: I intend to live my life so as to go to the good place.
HUCK: Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up
my mind I wouldn’t try for it.
WIDOW: Now, go on in, Huckleberry, and wash up for lunch.
HUCK: But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no
good.
(To the Widow) Do you reckon Tom Sawyer will go to the good place?
WIDOW: Certainly not—not by a considerable sight.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.7
HUCK: I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
DOUGLASS: (Reading again) Chapter Four. It was well into the winter, now. I had
been to school most all the time…
(CHILDREN appear; they sit and open their books, as at school.)
HUCK: …and could spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the
multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five—and I don’t reckon I could ever
get any further than that if I was to live forever.
CHILD 1: (Raising his hand) History…H-I-S-T-R-Y…history.
DOUGLASS: Sixty years ago, in their celebrated Declaration of Independence, the
founders of this nation made the loudest and clearest assertions of the rights of man…
CHILD 2: (Reciting by heart) “We hold these Truths to be self-evident…”
CHILD 3: (Reciting by heart) “…that all Men are created equal…”
CHILD 4: (Reciting by heart) “…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights…”
HUCK: (Reciting by heart) “…that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of
Happiness.”
DOUGLASS: And yet at that very time the identical men who drew up that Declaration
of Independence, and framed the American democratic constitution, were trafficking in
the blood and souls of their fellow men.
BLACK WOMAN: At first I hated the school—
HUCK: (Reading a schoolbook, with difficulty) “When George was about six years old,
he was made the master of a little hatchet.”
BLACK WOMAN: But by-and-by I got so I could stand it—
HUCK: (His reading improves) “One day, George amused himself by hacking the trunk
of a beautiful, young English cherry tree.”
BLACK WOMAN: And the longer I went, the easier it got to be.
HUCK: (More fluently) “George’s father was furious.”
PAP’S VOICE: “George!”
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.8
HUCK: “said his father,”
PAP’S VOICE: “Do you know who killed that beautiful young cherry yonder in the
garden?”
HUCK: “I can’t tell a lie, Pa. You know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.”
(We hear the sound of PAP’s hickory; HUCK flinches.)
DOUGLASS: Chapter Five. One morning, I went down the front garden and clumb over
the stile.
BLACK WOMAN: There was an inch of new snow on the ground, and I seen
somebody’s tracks.
DOUGLASS: I was going to follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks
first.
PAP’S VOICE: There was a cross in the left boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off
the devil.
(We hear a snake.)
HUCK: Pap.
DOUGLASS: I was up in a second and shinning down the hill.
HUCK: I was at Judge Thatcher’s as quick as I could get there.
(JUDGE THATCHER appears, poring over casebooks.)
JUDGE: Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your interest?
HUCK: No, sir. Is there some for me?
JUDGE: Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in, last night. Over a hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a
fortune for you. You better let me invest it along with your six-thousand, because if you
take it, you’ll spend it.
HUCK: No, sir, I don’t want to spend it. I don’t want it at all—not the six thousand,
nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give it to you.
JUDGE: (Now giving HUCK his full attention) Why, what can you mean, my boy?
HUCK: Don’t ask me no questions about it, please. You’ll take it— won’t you?
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.9
JUDGE: Well, I’m puzzled. Is something the matter?
HUCK: Please take it, and don’t ask me nothing—then I won’t have to tell no lies.
JUDGE: (Studying a while) Oho-o. I think I see. You want to sell all your property to
me—not give it to me. That’s the correct idea.
WHITE MAN: Then he wrote something on a paper.
JUDGE: There—you see it says ‘for a consideration.’ That means I have bought it of
you and paid you for it. Here’s a dollar for you. Now, you sign it.
HUCK: So I signed it—and left.
(DOUGLASS steps forward. Assisted by BLACK WOMAN and WHITE MAN, he takes off
his coat, tie, shirt, and shoes as he speaks.)
DOUGLASS: In law, the slave is a piece of property—a marketable commodity to be
bought and sold at the will and caprice of the master. He has no wife, no children, no
country, no home. He can own nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but what must
belong to another. He toils that another may reap the fruit; he is industrious that another
may live in idleness; he labors in chains at home, under a burning sun and a biting lash,
that another may ride in ease and splendor abroad; he lives in ignorance, that another may
be educated; he is abused, that another may be exalted; he rests his toil-worn limbs on the
cold, damp ground, that another may repose on the softest pillow; he is clad in course and
tattered raiment, that another may be arrayed in purple and fine linen; he is sheltered only
by the wretched hovel, that a master may dwell in a magnificent mansion; and to this
condition he is bound as by an arm of iron.
(DOUGLASS now appears in the clothes of JIM.)
HUCK: The widow’s big nigger, named Jim, had a hairball as big as your fist, which had
been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it.
(Music.)
BLACK WOMAN: He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed everything.
WHITE MAN: So I went to Jim and told him Pap was here again, for I found his tracks
in the snow.
HUCK: What’s he going to do? Is he going to stay?
JIM: Yo’ ole father doan’ know, yit, what he’s a-goin’ to do. Sometimes he spec he’ll go
’way, en den agin he spec he’ll stay. Dey’s two angels hoverin’ roun’ ’bout him. One ’uv
’em is white and shiny, en ’tother one is black. De white one gits him to go right, a little
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.10
while, den de black one sail in en bust it all up. A body can’t tell, yit, which one goin’ to
fetch him at de las’. (The drums stop.) But you is all right. De bes’ way is to res’ easy en
let de ole man take his own way.
DOUGLASS: Chapter Six.
HUCK: When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night— there was Pap, his
own self!
(PAP appears.)
PAP: You think you’re a good deal of a big-bug, don’t you?
HUCK: Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t.
PAP: Don’t give me none o’ your lip. You’ve put on considerable many frills since I
been away. I’ll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You’re educated, too,
they say; can read and write. You think you’re better’n your father, now, don’t you,
because he can’t? I’ll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such
hifalutin’ foolishness, hey?—who told you you could?
HUCK: The widow. She told me.
PAP: The widow, hey?—and who told the widow she could put in her shovel about a
thing that ain’t none of her business?
HUCK: Nobody never told her.
PAP: Well, I’ll learn her how to meddle. And looky here—you drop that school, you
hear? I’ll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be
better’n what he is. You lemme catch you foolin’ around that school again, you hear?
Your mother couldn’t read, and she couldn’t write, nuther, before she died. None of the
family couldn’t before they died. I can’t; and here you’re a swelling yourself up like this.
I ain’t the man to stand it— you hear? Say—lemme hear you read.
HUCK: (Reading his schoolbook) “Many people said that he should become King of the
United States. But George would not hear of it. He hadn’t fought for America’s freedom
against the King of England only to be crowned king himself.”
(PAP grabs HUCK and tosses him to the floor.)
PAP: It’s so. You can do it. I had my doubts when they told me. Now looky here; you
stop putting on frills. I won’t have it. I’ll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about
that school again, I’ll tan you good. First you know you’ll get religion too. I never see
such a son. Ain’t you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.11
look’n glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor—and your own father got to sleep with
the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. They say you’re rich. Hey?—how’s that?
HUCK: They lie—that's how.
PAP: Looky here—mind how you talk to me; I’m a standing about all I can stand,
now—so don’t give me no sass. I’ve been in town two days, and I hain’t heard nothing
but about you bein’ rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That’s why I come.
You git me that money—I want it.
HUCK: I hain’t got no money.
PAP: It's a lie. Judge Thatcher’s got it. You git it. I want it.
HUCK: I hain’t got no money I tell you. You ask judge Thatcher; he’ll tell you the same.
PAP: All right. I’ll ask him; And I’ll make him pungle, too. Say—how much you got in
your pocket? I want it.
HUCK: I hain’t got only a dollar, and I want that to—
PAP: It don’t make no difference what you want it for—just shell it out.
DOUGLASS: He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going
downtown to get some whisky.
PAP: Haven’t had a drink all day.
HUCK: Next day he was drunk, and went to Judge Thatcher’s and bullyragged him and
tried to make him give up the money.
(JUDGE THATCHER appears, as in his courtroom.)
JUDGE: (Striking his gavel) Mr. Finn!
PAP: Call this a govment! A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this! Here’s the
law up and helps keep me out o’ my property.
JUDGE: (Overlapping) Mr. Finn!
PAP: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and upards, and jams him into an
old trap of a cabin, and lets him go round in clothes that ain’t fitten for a hog.
JUDGE: (Overlapping) Mr. Finn!
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.12
PAP: Look at my hat—if you call it a hat—look at it—such a hat for me to wear—one of
the wealthiest men in this town, if I could git my rights.
HUCK: But he couldn’t.
JUDGE: For drunk and disorderly conduct—(knocking his gavel) —ten days.
(PAP is handcuffed.)
HUCK: He went for me, too, for not stopping school.
(PAP comes up behind HUCK and beats him with his hickory.)
DOUGLASS: He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me.
HUCK: I didn’t want to go to school much, before, but I reckoned I’d go now to spite
pap.
BLACK WOMAN: Every time he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk
he raised Cain with Judge Thatcher about the money; and every time he raised Cain he
got jailed.
(PAP is cuffed again.)
HUCK: He was just suited—this kind of thing was right in his line.
DOUGLASS: Then, one day in the spring, he catched me, and took me up the river
about three mile, in a skiff.
(HUCK rows the skiff, while PAP sits in the stern and drinks.)
PAP: Yes, and I told ’em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lot’s of ’em heard me.
HUCK: Pap warn’t in a good humor, so he was his natural self.
(DOUGLASS appears, as if speaking at a podium to a crowded hall.)
DOUGLASS: Oh, be warned, fellow citizens, be warned!
PAP: There was this free nigger standin’ there from up north—why there ain’t a man in
this town that’s got as fine clothes as what he had.
DOUGLASS: A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous
creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.13
PAP: And what do you think? They said he made ab’litionist speeches up north, and he
thought he knowed everything.
DOUGLASS: For the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster,
and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!
PAP: I says to the people, why ain’t this nigger put up at auction and sold?—that’s what
I want to know.
DOUGLASS: Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of
the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
PAP: And that ain’t the wust. They said that nigger could vote when he was at home.
DOUGLASS: America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds
herself to be false to the future.
PAP: When they told me that, I says I’ll never vote agin. The country may rot for all
me—I’ll never vote agin as long as I live.
DOUGLASS: Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I
will, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the
bible, which are disregarded and trampled on, dare to call in question and to denounce,
with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the
great sin and shame of America!
PAP: That prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted, low-down ab’litionist, free
nigger—why he wouldn’t a give me the road if I hadn’t shoved him out o’ the way.
HUCK: Pap and me crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there
warn’t no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn’t
find it if you didn’t know where it was.
(PAP kicks the pig out of the way, and pushes HUCK into the cabin.)
BLACK WOMAN: He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run
off. He always locked the door and put the key under his head, nights.
(PAP strikes HUCK to the floor with his hickory.)
DOUGLASS: By-and-by, pap got too handy with his hick’ry, and I couldn’t stand it. I
was all over welts.
BLACK WOMAN: He got to going away so much, too, and locking me in.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.14
HUCK: Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was dreadful lonesome. I
judged he had got drowned and I wasn’t ever going to get out any more. I was scared. So
I made up my mind I would fix up some way to leave there.
(Night. PAP returns to the cabin. He carries his rifle. He has the delirium tremens—and
believes two spirits are following him.)
BLACK WOMAN/BLACK MAN: (Singing)
I WANNA BE READY
I WANNA BE READY
I WANNA BE READY
LORD, READY TO PUT ON
MY LONG WHITE ROBE.
PAP: (Speaking over the song) Tramp—tramp—tramp; that’s the dead;
tramp—tramp—tramp; they’re coming after me; but I won’t go!
(HUCK hides in a corner as PAP enters the cabin.)
Oh, they’re here! Don’t touch me—don’t! hands off—they’re cold; let go—oh, let a poor
devil alone!
(PAP collapses to the floor. HUCK carefully gets his rifle, and retreats to his hiding
place. Pointing the rifle at PAP, he slowly falls asleep..)
PAP: Git up! What you ’bout! (HUCK opens his eyes.) What you doin’ with this gun?
HUCK: Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him.
PAP: Why didn’t you roust me?
HUCK: Well, I tried to, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t budge you.
PAP: Well, all right. Don’t stand there palavering all day, but out with you, and see if
there’s a fish on the lines for breakfast. I’ll be along in a minute.
BLACK WOMAN: Pap unlocked the door and I cleared out, up the river bank.
HUCK: I noticed some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling
of bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise.
DOUGLASS: I went with one eye out for pap and ’tother one out for what the rise might
fetch along.
HUCK: Well, all at once, here comes a canoe; just a beauty, too, riding high like a duck.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.15
BLACK WOMAN: I shot head first off the bank, like a frog, clothes and all on, and
struck out for the canoe.
HUCK: It was a drift canoe, sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore.
DOUGLASS: When I got to shore, pap wasn’t in sight yet, and I struck on an idea.
BLACK WOMAN: I judged I’d hide her good, and then, stead of taking to the woods
when I run off, I’d go down the river about fifty mile and camp in one place for good. I
says to myself—
HUCK: I can fix it now so nobody won’t think of following me.
DOUGLASS: About half-past three, Pap locked me in and took the skiff.
HUCK: I judged he wouldn’t come back that night. See, every little while he locked me
in, and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game—
PAP: (Taking a drink) —for whisky.
HUCK: I didn’t lose no time.
DOUGLASS: I found an old rusty wood-saw without any handle—
BLACK WOMAN: —and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out, big
enough to let me through.
HUCK: Before he was ’tother side of the river I was out of that hole.
DOUGLASS: I took the ax and smashed in the door.
HUCK: I beat it and hacked it considerable a-doing it.
BLACK WOMAN: I fetched the pig in and took him back and hacked into his throat
with the ax, and left him down on the ground to bleed.
HUCK: I did wish Tom Sawyer was there. I knowed he would take an interest in this
kind of business and throw in the fancy touches.
BLACK WOMAN: Next I took the pig and dragged him through the woods down to the
river, and dumped him in.
DOUGLASS: Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks against
it to hold it there.
BLACK WOMAN: Last, I cleaned the place out—
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.16
HUCK: —everything that was worth a cent.
DOUGLASS: The next minute I was a-spinning down stream soft but quick in the shade
of the bank. I made two mile and half, and then struck out towards the middle of the
river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing and people might see me. I
got out amongst the drift-wood and laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float.
HUCK: I laid there and had a good rest, looking away into the sky, not a cloud in it. The
sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never
knowed it before.
WHITE MAN: I was a way below the ferry now. I rose up and there was Jackson’s
Island, standing up out of the middle of the river, heavy-timbered, big, dark and solid,
like a steamboat without any lights.
BLACK WOMAN: It didn’t take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping
rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side
towards the Illinois shore.
DOUGLASS: I went up, and set down on a log, and looked out on the big river and the
black drift-wood, and away over to the town, three mile away, where there were three or
four lights twinkling.
HUCK: There was a little gray in the sky now, so I laid down for a nap before breakfast.
(HUCK puts his hat over his face and falls asleep.)
BLACK WOMAN: (Singing)
FREE GRACE,
FREE GRACE,
FREE GRACE.
SINNER, FREE GRACE,
FREE GRACE,
I’M NEW BORN AGAIN.
ENSEMBLE: (Singing)
I KNOW MY LORD HAS SET ME FREE,
I’M NEW BORN AGAIN,
BEEN LONG TIME A-TALKING ’BOUT MY TRIALS HERE BELOW,
FREE GRACE,
FREE GRACE,
FREE GRACE.
SINNER, FREE GRACE,
FREE GRACE,
I’M NEW BORN AGAIN.
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.17
DOUGLASS: Chapter Eight. Well, I was just wakin’ up…
ENSEMBLE: boom!
HUCK: …when I thinks I hears a deep sound away up the river. I hopped up and went
and looked out at a hole in the leaves.
(BLACK MAN, BLACK WOMAN, and WHITE MAN line up, holding a pipe as a ship’s
railing. They hold hats in their free hands to represent “passengers.”)
There was a ferry-boat, floating along down with the current. (We hear the ship’s bell
ring.) I knowed what the matter was now.
ENSEMBLE: Boom!
HUCK: You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carcass come
to the top.
FERRY BOAT CAPTAIN: Stand away!
ENSEMBLE: BOOM!
HUCK: I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders.
FERRY BOAT CAPTAIN: Look sharp now!
HUCK: I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log. I lit a pipe and had
a good long smoke and went on watching.
FERRY BOAT CAPTAIN: (Peering through a spyglass) The current sets in the closest
here, and maybe he’s washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water’s
edge. I hope so, anyway.
HUCK: I didn’t hope so.
ENSEMBLE: (Very loudly) BOOM!!!
HUCK: By-and-by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they coulda run out a
plank and walked ashore.
DOUGLASS: On the boat was Judge Thatcher—and the Widow Douglas—leaning over
the rails—watching with all their might.
HUCK: I could see them first rate, but they couldn’t see me.
ENSEMBLE: BOOM!
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.18
HUCK: The boat floated on and went out of sight around the foot of the island. Then
they started up the channel on the Missouri side, under steam, and booming once in a
while as they went.
ENSEMBLE: (Fading) Boom!
HUCK: By-and-by, I didn’t hear it no more. I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else
would come a-hunting after me.
(The SLAVE-TRADER appears.)
SLAVE-TRADER: Negroes wanted. I will pay at all times the highest price in cash for
all good negroes offered. I am buying for the Memphis and Louisiana markets, and can
afford to pay, and will pay, as high as any trading man in this state. All those having
negroes to sell will do well to call upon me at number 210, corner of Sixth and
Washington streets, St. Louis, Missouri. Thomas Dickins, of the firm of Bolton, Dickins
and Company.
HUCK: After breakfast, I went exploring around down through the island. I was boss of
it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it.
WHITE MAN: By-and-by I catched a glimpse of fire, away through the trees. I went for
it, cautious and slow.
BLACK WOMAN: I was close enough to have a look, and here laid a man on the
ground.
HUCK: It most give me the fan-tods.
WHITE MAN: He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire.
BLACK WOMAN: I set there behind a clump of bushes, and kept my eyes on him
steady.
WHITE MAN: Pretty soon he gapped, and stretched himself, and hove off the blanket—
BLACK WOMAN: And it was Jim!
HUCK: (Skipping out) Hello, Jim!
JIM: (Dropping to his knees) Doan’ hurt me—don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a
ghos’. I awluz like dead people, en done all I could for ’em. You en git in de river agin,
whah you b’longs, en doan’ do nuffin to Ole Jim, ’at ’uz awluz yo’ fren’.
HUCK: Why, Jim, I ain’t no ghost!
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.19
JIM: Huck?
WHITE MAN: Well, I warn’t long making him understand I warn’t dead.
JIM: Huck!
HUCK: I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn’t lonesome now.
JIM: But looky here Huck, who wuz it dat ’uz killed in dat shanty, ef it warn’t you?
BLACK WOMAN: I told him the whole thing.
JIM: That sho’ wuz smart, Huck. Tom Sawyer couldn’t get up no better plan than that.
HUCK: How do you come to be here, Jim, and how’d you get here?
JIM: Maybe I better not tell.
HUCK: Why, Jim?
JIM: Well, deys reasons. (JIM pauses.) But you wouldn’t tell on me ef I ’uz to tell you,
would you, Huck?
HUCK: Blamed if I would, Jim.
JIM: Well, I believe you, Huck. I—I run off.
HUCK: Jim!
JIM: But mind, you said you wouldn’t tell—you know you said you wouldn’t tell, Huck.
HUCK: Well, I did. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ll stick to it. Honest injun I will. People will
call me a low down ablitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no
difference. I ain’t agoing to tell, and I ain’t agoing back there anyways. So now, let’s
know all about it.
JIM: Well, you see, it ’uz dis way. Der widder, she pecks on me all de time, en treats me
pooty rough, but she awluz said she woudn’ sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey
wuz a nigger trader roun’ de place considerable, lately, en I begin to git oneasy.
(The WIDOW DOUGLAS and the SLAVE TRADER appear. They are negotiating a deal.)
Well, one night I creeps to de do’, pooty late, en de do’ warn’t quite shet, en I hear der
widder say she goin’ to sell me down to Orleans. She didn’ want to, but she could git
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Splittin’ the Raft, p.20
eight hund’d dollars for me, en it ’uz such a big stack o’ money she couldn’ resis’. I never
waited to hear de res’. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you.
(Music. JIM escapes.)
I tuck out en shin down de hill.
I hid under de ole tumble-down cooper shop on de bank.
I wuz dah all night.
Dey wuz somebody roun’ all de time.
(JIM hears voices)
TOWNSPERSON 1: Who done it?
TOWNSPERSON 2: Well, some thinks ol’ Finn done it himself.
TOWNSPERSON 1: No—is that so?
JIM: I laid dah under de shavins all de next day.
I ’uz hungry.
When it come dark agin I tuck out up de river road.
I says, a raff is what I’s after.
A raff come along.
I wade in en swum more’n halfway acrost de river.
I clumb up and laid down on de planks.
I hear men yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz.
I reck’n’d by mawnin’ I’d be twenty-five mile down de river.
But I didn’t have no luck.
A man begun to come aft wid a lantern.
I slid overboard and struck out fer de islan’.
I found a good place to lan’,
En went into de woods,
En I jedged I wouldn’t fool wid raffs no mo’.
(HUCK and JIM get into their canoe and paddle along, exploring the island.)
ENSEMBLE: (Singing)
ROLL, JORDAN,
ROLL, JORDAN,
ROLL, JORDAN, ROLL
O MY SOUL ARISE-A IN-A HEAVEN, LORD
FOR TO HEAR WHEN DE JORDAN ROLL.
O MY SOUL ARISE-A IN-A HEAVEN, LORD
FOR TO HEAR WHEN DE JORDAN ROLL.
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