Raftsmen

While Jim and Huck are traveling down the Mississippi River in their raft, they continue to worry about accidentally missing their destination, Cairo. Cairo is a town that is at the intersection of the Ohio River and the Mississippi River. Once they reach Cairo, they plan to take a steamboat which will lead them up the Ohio River to the free states.
When reading this chapter, I got the sense that raftsmen were sort of careless people. They are loud and obnoxious. One of the men was singing on the raft, and the other raftsmen began to make fun of the man’s singing saying “it was the tune the old cow died on.” While the men were making fun of the singer, one of the biggest guys there got up and told them to leave the singer alone. What I am trying to get at is that raftsmen are usually men that are just trying to have a good time and do not really care about much. They drink and dance, and they are pretty unconcerned about the world outside of their raft.