How It All Goes Down
We've just stumbled into a small town in early nineteenth-century Missouri called Dawson's Landing—which is totally the original Dawson's Creek. But before our story here really gets rolling, our narrator gives us the lowdown on what's been going on around this place.
The big news in town is that Percy Driscoll's wife died right after she gave birth to a baby boy named Tom. Percy's a rich businessman who owns a bunch of slaves. And how's this for a coincidence: one of Percy's slaves, Roxy, just happened to give birth to a little guy named Chambers on the very same day that Tom was born. Since Roxy is so light-skinned, Tom and Chambers could practically pass for twins.
Our narrator also gives us the dirt on Driscoll's neighbor, David Wilson. After earning the reputation of town fool and the corresponding nickname, "Pudd'nhead," this guy's hopes of establishing a law career were squashed. But don't feel too sorry for Pudd'nhead because he finds plenty of solace in his hobbies, like collecting other people's fingerprints.
One night, Roxy begins to fret that her precious baby Chambers might someday be sold down the river into much harsher conditions of slavery. To keep this from happening, she comes up with a plan: she dresses Chambers in Tom's fancy clothes and puts Tom in Chambers's rags, basically switching the kids' identities so that her baby can grow up as a free man instead of a slave. Yeah, this Just. Got. Interesting.
Roxy manages to pull off her scheme, and a distracted Driscoll doesn't notice a thing. Shortly after Roxy makes the switch, Pudd'nhead takes the kids' fingerprints (FYI: he likes to take several samples of the fingerprints and had also taken them before the babies were switched).
Percy Driscoll croaks and Tom (Roxy's biological son who's been masquerading as Percy's son, just to be super clear) is sent to live with his rich uncle, Judge York Driscoll. Granted her freedom by Percy on his deathbed, Roxy takes off to start a new life as a chambermaid on a steamboat.
Tom grows up and goes to college, but drops out and returns home to sponge off his uncle. Tom's also picked up a big-time gambling habit and gotten into some serious debt. Although Driscoll bails his nephew out at first, Tom soon starts disguising himself and robbing houses in town to pay off his subsequent debts.
After falling on hard times, Roxy returns to Dawson's Landing and tries to hit Tom up for some money. He blows her off so she informs him about the switch she made when he was a child and threatens to tell Driscoll if he doesn't pay up. Gee, thanks, mom. A horrified Tom agrees to pay Roxy each month to keep her quiet.
Meanwhile, Luigi and Angelo, a pair of twins from Italy, come to visit Dawson's Landing. The whole town is in awe of these exotic foreigners and the woman whose home they're staying in hosts a huge party for them. Tom attends the party and steals Luigi's valuable knife.
However, Tom's plans to pawn the knife to get money for his latest debts are foiled when he learns there's a trap being set to catch the thief. Roxy suggests that Tom sell her back into slavery to get the money to pay off his debts and then buy her back in a year.
When Roxy winds up being sold down the river to an extremely cruel master, though, she escapes and tells Tom that he'd better come up with the money to buy her freedom or else she's going to blab to Driscoll about his true identity.
Tom decides to steal the money from his uncle. But he bungles the plan and instead ends up stabbing and killing Driscoll with Luigi's stolen knife. Luigi and Angelo, accused of murder and accessory to murder, respectively, are sent to jail to await their trial. Pudd'nhead agrees to defend the twins in court.
The case looks beyond hopeless. At the eleventh hour, though, Pudd'nhead discovers that the fingerprint left on the knife at the murder scene matches Tom's fingerprint from his collection. Huzzah! While he's busy studying the fingerprints, Pudd'nhead also discovers that Tom and Chambers were switched when they were kids.
Armed with his awesome new evidence, Pudd'nhead proves to the court that the twins are innocent and that Tom is guilty. Slam dunk. He also reveals that Tom and Chambers were switched, rendering Tom a slave. The twins are freed, Tom is thrown in jail, and the town now idolizes Pudd'nhead.
But Tom doesn't stay locked up for long. The governor decides that a valuable slave shouldn't be left to waste away in jail. So Tom is pardoned and—wait for it—sold down the river. Talk about a twist of fate.