In this section, you will continue analyzing the setting of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. In the previous section, you read about young Tom and how his beautiful summer Saturday was ruined by having to paint a fence. Now, you will read an excerpt from Chapter 13. Tom and his friends Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper have run away from home to become pirates. You might want to make notes about where you think Twain is providing information about the setting. For example, you would read the first sentence, and you might make notes that the first sentence is all about setting. When you read the sentence, you know the setting is on the Mississippi River below the town of St. Petersburg where the river is a mile wide. In the river is a narrow wooded island. As you read the next sentence, you find even more information about the island—that it’s close to the far shore next to a very thick forest. Now, see if you can make notes about setting as you read the rest of the text.

Three miles below St. Petersburg, at a point where the Mississippi River was a trifle over a mile wide, there was a long, narrow, wooded island, with a shallow bar at the head of it, and this offered well as a rendezvous. It was not inhabited; it lay far over toward the further shore, abreast a dense and almost wholly unpeopled forest. So Jackson's Island was chosen. Who were to be the subjects of their piracies was a matter that did not occur to them. Then they hunted up Huckleberry Finn, and he joined them promptly, for all careers were one to him; he was indifferent. They presently separated to meet at a lonely spot on the river-bank two miles above the village at the favorite hour– which was midnight. There was a small log raft there, which they meant to capture. Each would bring hooks and lines, and such provision as he could steal in the most dark and mysterious way–as became outlaws. And before the afternoon was done, they had all managed to enjoy the sweet glory of spreading the fact that pretty soon the town would "hear something." All who got this vague hint were cautioned to "be mum and wait."

About midnight Tom arrived with a boiled ham and a few trifles, and stopped in a dense undergrowth on a small bluff overlooking the meeting-place. It was starlight, and very still. The mighty river lay like an ocean at rest. Tom listened a moment, but no sound disturbed the quiet. Then he gave a low, distinct whistle. It was answered from under the bluff. Tom whistled twice more; these signals were answered in the same way. Then a guarded voice said:

"Who goes there?"

"Tom Sawyer, the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. Name your names."

"Huck Finn the Red-Handed, and Joe Harper the Terror of the Seas." Tom had furnished these titles, from his favorite literature.

"'Tis well. Give the countersign."

Two hoarse whispers delivered the same awful word simultaneously to the brooding night:

"Blood!"

Then Tom tumbled his ham over the bluff and let himself down after it, tearing both skin and clothes to some extent in the effort. There was an easy, comfortable path along the shore under the bluff, but it lacked the advantages of difficulty and danger so valued by a pirate.