Huck appreciates their efforts, but finds civilized life confining. In the beginning of the story, Tom Sawyer helps Huck escape at night from the house, past Miss Watson’s slave, Jim. They meet up with Tom Sawyer’s self-proclaimed gang, who plot to carry out adventurous crimes.

Life is changed by the sudden appearance of his shiftless father “Pap,” an abusive parent and drunkard. Although Huck is successful in preventing his Pap from acquiring his fortune, Pap forcibly gains custody of Huck and the two move to the backwoods where Huck is kept locked inside his father’s cabin. Equally dissatisfied with life with his father, Huck escapes from the cabin, elaborately fakes his own death, and sets off down the Mississippi River.

This is a story of this teen-aged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.