A spring snowstorm catches everyone off guard, and Miss Watson makes James chop wood all day so her household will have enough fuel for weeks. Because the enslaved people are not offered any wood for their own homes, James and others gather what they can in secret, even cutting small trees near the quarters. James also hides seasoned logs under Miss Watson’s porch so he can retrieve them later for the elderly enslaved people April and Cotton, deciding that if this counts as stealing, he does not care.

While James works shirtless in the cold, Huck approaches and says he has sold all his possessions to Judge Thatcher for a dollar. Their conversation turns to Huck’s schooling and then to race. When Huck notes that James is not much darker than he is and asks why James is enslaved, James explains that his mother was enslaved and that, in their world, any known Black ancestry makes a person Black regardless of appearance.

Huck then mentions tracks in the snow with a cross in the heel, which makes James realize Huck fears his father has returned. Wanting to comfort the boy without directly confirming the threat, James uses a mule-tail hairball as a fortune-telling prop. James tells Huck that his father is torn between good and bad influences and may either leave or stay, then adds a reassuring prediction that Huck will be hurt but survive. James also invents a longer fortune about Huck’s future marriages and warns him to stay away from the river, giving Huck something larger than his immediate fear to think about.

Miss Watson interrupts and orders Huck inside for supper, then tells James to stop chopping because the noise hurts her head. Later, as James walks home, Luke catches up with him and notices that James is preoccupied. Luke correctly guesses that James is worried about Huck and reminds him that Huck’s troubles belong to the white world. James admits that Huck is still a child with serious troubles, but he also recognizes the hard limit of his own position: as an enslaved man, he cannot truly help Huck.