How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #16
Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool. (10.9)
Just as he is faced with different systems of morality, Huck also chooses between the different superstitious beliefs presented by various characters.
Quote #17
"Doan' le's talk about it, Huck. Po' n*****s can't have no luck. I awluz 'spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn't done wid its work." (16.61)
Jim continually expects bad luck.
Quote #18
We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to say. We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the rattlesnake-skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would only look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more bad luck – and keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep still. (16.66)
Huck uses the superstitious qualities of the rattlesnake to justify and explain bad events that occur.