Twain's Use of Dialect in a Case of Superstition Frances G. Tilney

"O, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do. Dey's awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey skyers me so. Please to don't tell nobody 'bout it, sah, er ole mars Silas he'll scole me; 'kase he say dey ain' no witches. I jus' wish to goodness he was heah now - den what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn' fine no way to git aroun' it dis time. But it's awluz jis' so: people dat's sot, stays sot; dey won't look into noth'n en fine it out f'r deyselves, en when you fine it out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan b'lieve you" (245).

When Huck and Tom attempt to rescue Jim by Herculean, rather than mundane, efforts, they utilize the goodwill of another one of the slaves on the Phelps' plantation. Though the reader is never graced with the slave's name, Twain describes him as a wooly-haired chucklehead. Huck and Tom, in their infinite wisdom, use this slave to send various things into Jim's shack - most prominently, a pie with a rope ladder baked inside. At one point, after the boys have dug a useless hole from inside a shed under the foundation to Jim's cell, they forget to block the whole and Mr....