A question that came to my mind when I was reading these chapters was why, in Tom's mind, does everything have to be so stinking complicated? I guess he is a kid, and he has "read the books," and he wants to make it seem more "heroic.." It still makes little sense to me. Huckleberry's plan to free Jim was just as legitimate as Tom's was, but much less complicated and not nearly as dangerous. As a follow-up question, why is Huck conforming to Tom's nonsense? I don't think that Huck really needs Tom's help so bad that he has to follow through with Tom's ridiculous plan.. Something I wasn't too fond of through these chapters sort of follows the same idea as my question. It's frustrating to me that Tom dragged Huck into his shenanigans and wasted his time for no legitimate reason, but the book needs some contrast, or it wouldn't be interesting (yes, I do realize this isn't the only contrast throughout the book, nor is it anywhere close to being first in line for most important). I think that Tom's idea was a waste of time and effort and that Huck should've been independant with his plan and gotten Jim out "easy-peasy" on the first try. A take away, less from this section, and more from the entire book, for me at least, is all of the things about witchery and the devil and the odd little rituals that a lot of the characters in the story partake in. I don't understand why they are all so into that sort of thing. For example, Huck's dad, at the beginning of the book, had a weird X on his boot to ward off the devil, Huck wanted to throw salt over his shoulder so that he wouldn't have bad luck, and in these chapters, the boys convinced one of the men that they can cure his "witch-haunting" with a witch pie. I don't think that this really has too much significance to the story as a whole, but I, personally am interested in that sort of thing (in movies and books), so it caught my eye.