earing up
our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble
with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at it,
a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, and is
just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, as any rag
ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no experience, and so
he don't care what kind of a--"

"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep still
--that's what I'D do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping by a
hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous."

"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my advice,
you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline."

He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says:

"Borrow a shirt, too."

"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?"

"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on."

"Journal your granny--JIM can't write."

"S'pose he CAN'T write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if we
make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron
barrel-hoop?"

"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better
one; and quicker, too."

"PRISONERS don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull pens
out of, you muggins. They ALWAYS make their pens out of the hardest,
toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or something like
that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks and weeks and
months and months to file it out, too, because they've got to do it by
rubbing it on the wall. THEY wouldn't use a goose-quill if they had it.
It ain't regular."

"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?"

"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort and
women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; and
when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message to
let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the bottom
of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The Iron Mask
always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too."

"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan."

"That ain't nothing; we can get him some."

"Can't nobody READ his plates."

"That ain't got anything to DO with it, Huck Finn. All HE'S got to do is
to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't HAVE to be able to
read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a pr