Inside the story
Meet Jim
Jim is a young enslaved boy who lives and works in Aunt Polly’s household in St. Petersburg. At the story’s outset, Aunt Polly sends him to whitewash the fence, but Tom Sawyer tries to persuade Jim to do the task in his place.
On the page
A small, cheerful enslaved boy in simple homespun servant's clothes, barefoot, carrying a tin water pail and singing.








