Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

Huck regards Mr. Grangerford, who is the least frivolous of men, as being a gentleman, well-bred, dignified, a joy, but also the stern peace-keeper of the household if need be, though there is seldom the need. This is because all of the Grangerfords are respectful and good-spirited. The older sons of Mr. Grangerford are “tall” and “beautiful” in Huck’s estimation. One afternoon, they toast their parents along with Huck and Buck. The Grangerford women are all beautiful too, one proud, grand, but good, another gentle as a dove. Three Grangerford sons have died, along with Emmeline.

Huck observes that many slaves serve the Grangerford family, each Grangerford being tended to by one slave. Huck himself has a slave to tend to him while staying at the Grangerford home, though, because Huck is not used to being served, he does not give his slave much work to do, while Buck, in contrast, works his slave very hard. Mr. Grangerford, Huck learns, owns many farms and over a hundred slaves, and it is by profiting from his slave-worked farms that Mr. Grangerford has amassed his wealth.

Huck learns that there is another aristocratic family living nearby: the Shepherdsons, as proud and grand as the Grangerfords. One day, as Huck and Buck are hunting, a Shepherdson named Harney rides by. Buck tells Huck to jump into the woods and Huck does so. Buck fires a shot at Harney, but only manages to knock his hat off. Harney rides toward where the boys are, gun in hand, but they run as fast as they can, not stopping till they reach the Grangerford home. Mr. Grangerford is pleased to hear this story recounted. However, he tells Buck that he does not want him to shoot Shepherdsons from behind a bush, but that he should jump into the middle of the road next time to shoot.

Huck asks Buck why he wanted to kill Harney. Buck says he doesn’t have a reason, that Harney never did anything to him, but “it’s on account of the feud” that he would have killed him. Huck has never heard of a feud. Buck explains that it’s when one two families fight till everybody’s dead, and then there’s no more feud. Buck explains that many Grangerfords and Shepherdsons have died in the feud, and many have been wounded. He explains how, just this year, an old Shepherdson rode down and killed a young Grangerford, only to be killed himself a week later. Huck says the old man must be a coward, but Buck says there isn’t a coward in either of the two feuding families.

Huck goes to church with the Grangerfords and listens to a sermon about brotherly love, which he finds tiring but which the Grangerfords discuss approvingly at length. After church, Miss Sophia, a Grangerford girl, asks Huck into her room. There, she asks him to do her a favor and not tell anybody, which Huck agrees to do. Miss Sophia tells Huck to retrieve her copy of the New Testament from the church. As Huck enters the church, he notices many hogs resting on the cool floor. He observes that, while people go to church only when they have to, hogs go to church whenever they can.

After retrieving Miss Sophia’s Testament, Huck shakes it and out falls a note, on which is written: “Half-past two.” Huck gives the Testament and note to Miss Sophia, who lights up when she reads the latter. Huck inquires as to what the note is about, but Ms. Sophia, secretively, doesn’t respond, and she sends Huck off to play.

Huck heads down to the river, only to notice that the slave tending to him, Jack, is close behind him. Jack tells Huck that, if he comes down into the nearby swamp, he (Jack) will show him a lot of water-moccasins (a kind of snake). Huck, though suspicious, agrees, and follows Jack through the swamp. Instead of leading Huck to snakes, however, Jack leads him to Jim, hidden on a densely vegetated piece of land. Jim tells Huck that their raft survived the steamboat crash, patched up by Jim himself, and is hidden.

The next day, Huck notices he is alone in the Grangerford’s house. He goes outside, where Jack tells him that Miss Sophia has run away to marry Harney Shepherdson. All the Grangerfords are out and about trying to prevent the marriage. Huck runs after the Grangerfords to the river road, where he finds mounted and armed Shepherdsons shooting at Buck and another Grangerford hidden behind a woodpile. Huck hides in a tree and watches one of the Grangerfords shoot a Shepherdson out of his saddle. The other Shepherdsons tend to the man, and eventually ride away. Huck calls to Buck, who begins to cry, saying that his father and brothers are dead, and that he wishes he had killed Harney the day he saw him on the road.

The Shepherdsons ride back and shoot at Buck and the other Grangerford boy. Wounded, the two boys jump into the river. Huck feels so sick he almost falls out of his tree. He regrets, he says, ever having seen such things, and dreams about them often. After dark, Huck climbs out of his tree and vows never to return to the Grangerford house. He feels guilty for having ignited the day’s violence by not telling anybody about the note in Miss Sophia’s Testament, which he figures must have meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney at the time specified. As Huck creeps along the riverbank, crying, he finds two dead bodies, one of them Buck’s. Huck covers their faces, thinking how good Buck was to him.

Huck goes to where Jim is hiding. Jim is so glad to see Huck that he hugs him. Huck tells Jim to lose no time in shoving the raft off into the river so that the pair can leave the violence and danger of the feud behind them. Huck is nervous until he and Jim drift two miles away from where the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons live, at which point he feels safe, and he and Jim share a meal. Huck meditates that all homes seem “cramped up and smothery” except for a raft, aboard which “you feel mighty free and easy and comfortable.”