Chapter XXXVIII

Tom insists Jim must have a coat of arms and mournful inscriptions scratched on the wall, as all proper prisoners do. He designs an elaborate heraldic device and drafts four melancholy inscriptions for Jim to scrabble into stone, overriding Jim's protests about the difficulty and insisting the inscriptions must be in rock, not logs.

Tom solves the inscription problem by stealing the mill's grindstone. Jim helps roll it to the cabin. Tom then insists Jim must keep rats, garter-snakes, and spiders as pets, play the jews-harp for them, and water a mullen plant with his tears—tasks Jim finds absurd and exhausting.