The Trial of Silas Phelps in Tom Sawyer, Detective

Abstract

Brace dunlap, the richest farmer in his arkansas com-munity, wanted to marry Benny, young daughter of Silas and Sally Phelps, but this preacher-farmer and his wife told him pointblank that he could not. Brace, a widower of thirty-six, was overbearing and everybody was afraid of him. He became angry with Silas, and since he was a man of influence, Silas tried to avert his malice by hiring his worthless brother to help on the farm. But Silas could not really afford it, did not want him around, and would have gotten rid of him if he could. The hired brother, nicknamed Jubiter, had a twin brother, Jake, who had been jailed for robbery but had escaped and had not been seen for seven years. Aunt Sally was worried about Silas, for the trouble had made a changed man of him. Instigated by Brace, Jubiter got Silas into such rages that Aunt Sally feared he would strike Jubiter. Hoping that her nephew Tom Sawyer might be of help, she sent for him, and he and Huck Finn set out from St. Petersburg, Missouri, by steamboat. The time was about a year after their sojourn with the Phelpses as described in Huckleberry Finn.