Huck Finn Goes West: Memoirs of the Legendary American Folk Hero

At the end of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Hick and his friend Jim, Miss Watson's runaway slave, arrive at the Phelps plantation, two significant things happen. First, Jim discovers that he is a free man and, second, Huck intimates that he might go West. For lo these many years both of these exciting stories have been waiting to be told, and writer Ferrel Glade Roundy tells them Jim's story in Up From The Ashes and Hick's in Huck Finn Goes West.Huck stays with Jim till they reach the free state of Illinois and contact the fledgling Underground Railroad, an organization devoted to helping Ameica's black slaves to gain their freedom. Then after buying himself a horse, Huck heads west and by sheer happenstance arrives in Carthage, Illinois, on June 27,1844, and witnessesthe murders of the young prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum at the hands of a ruthless and angry mob.Deeply touched by this outrageous breech of justice, Huck spends the next two years in the beautiful Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois, that state's largest city at the time. After a tragic romance, he heads further west when mobs drive the Mormons out of their own city. Seeking freedom from racial (and now religious) bigotry, he opts to spend a year iwth a tribe of Plains Indians, whose chief is the remarkable university-educated Joseph of the Pawnees. Later on Huck so journs for a year with a second tribe, the Shoshones out in Idaho's beautiful Wind River Country. Here he is taken in as a son by fames Chief Washakie's mother, who has had a dream that a white boy would soon come to live with them, her youngest son having been killes the previous winter in a snow avalanche.Huck's object in living with some of America's native peoples is to set the record straight, for many absurd and palpably false stories had been circulated about them. He proves for himself that the Indians love their children just as white folks love theirs, and he attempts to show that through education, kindness, and fair play all peoples can live together peaceably.His life filled with excitement after leaving the Phelps plantation, Huck eventually marries and settles down on a beautiful ranch in Idaho's Wind River Country, where he maintains close relations with his Indian friends and often provides them with produce from his ranch. He also makes a couple trips back to his old home in St. Petersburg, Missouri and stays in touch with his childhood friend Tom Sawyer and his pal Jim, who in the meantime has located his wife Ruby and their children. Huck Finn Goes West is a must read for the young and the young at heart!