• Tom and Huck start digging a hole under the cabin with case knives. When this doesn’t work well, they resort to picks and “let on” that they are case knives. They make progress, and then retire for the night. 
• The next night the boys finish the hole, and meet up with Jim. They smuggle him plates, knives, shirts, and other things they have stolen during the day. 
• Tom smuggles a piece of candlestick in Jim’s food, and Jim almost loses some teeth. Then, the hounds rush into the hut through the hole which Tom and Huck forgot to secure. Nat the slave is shocked, and thinks it’s the doing of witches. Tom and Huck play off his superstitions and act like they saw nothing.
• Tom tells Nat that they need to make a witch pie to keep the witches away. In this Tom wants to hide a rope ladder. 

• Why does Huck follow along with everything Tom wants, even though he knows it’s foolish and illogical?
• How does the incident with the dogs and the witches, and Nat’s reaction to it, portray the black minstrel concept? 

• “‘Now you’re talking!’ I says; ‘your head gets leveler and leveler all the time, Tom Sawyer,’ I says. ‘Picks it the thing, moral or no moral; and as for me, I don’t care shucks for the morality of it, nohow.’"

- This marks one of the first times when Huck actually stands up to Tom and expresses his feelings on part of Tom’s ludicrous plan. It is ironic that Huck thinks that using picks might be wrong, or immoral. But in effect, it is the right thing to do, both for convenience’s and Jim’s sake. 

• “He told him everything. Jim he couldn’t see no sense in the most of it, but he allowed that we was white folks and knowed better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just as Tom said.” 

- Even though Jim had objections to Tom’s plan, just because Tom was white, Jim allowed that Tom had to be right. This shows how black slaves thought they were inferior to whites. In actuality, Jim had more sense than Tom, but he dare not dissent to a white person.

• Tom and Huck steal many things from Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally. 
• As said above, Jim doesn’t follow along with everything Tom wants solely because Tom is white. 
• The slave Nat is portrayed as extremely stupid, promoting the black minstrel concept.