Summary Chapter 3

Miss Watson scolds Huck over his clothes getting dirty. The widow cleans him off. Miss Watson forces Huck to pray, saying he’ll get what he asked for. He finds this is not the case. The Widow explains that he’ll get “spiritual gifts” by thinking of other people instead of himself. He doesn’t get the concept. The Widow is easier going in her views, but there seems to be no pleasing her sister. Their attitudes about life are reflected in their religious beliefs. The Widow tends to be more tolerant, and her sister is more rigid.

Huck’s father has been gone for a year. Huck is glad. His father was abusive. It is believed that he drowned, but Huck doesn’t believe it was his body they found.

The boys stop playing robbers, for they never accomplish anything. Tom Sawyer claims they are fighting Arabs and Spaniards, but everything is enchanted to look like something else…just like Don Quixote. Huck suggest they go after the wizards who are doing the enchantments, but Tom says they have powerful genies working for them. Tom explains what genies are. Huck thinks it is ridiculous that a powerful genie would obey a wizard, and Tom calls him a hopeless saphead.
Huck tries rubbing old lamps and rings, but he never sees a genie. He reckons Tom was lying to him again.