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Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]>
Thu, 21 Feb 2019 00:44:18 +0000
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In "Huck Finn," it says:

Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote toher that Tom and SID had come all right and safe, shesays to herself: "Look at that, now! I might haveexpected it, letting him go off that way without anybodyto watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all the waydown the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out whatthat creetur's up to THIS time, as long as I couldn'tseem to get any answer out of you about it."
I know the Phelps' farm is in Arkansas, but even at the southern edge of that State, 1100 miles would mean Aunt Polly  (supposedly located in Hannibal (calledSt. Petersburg in the book) was way up in Canada, as it is less than 500 miles from Hannibal/St. Pete to the Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
So why did Twain write "1100 miles" - does it have any special meaning/hidden significance?

- B. Clay Shannon

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