Headscratchers / Treasure Island

• Jim’s mother refuses to take the lot of Bones’ money and flee the Benbow Inn before the pirates come because she doesn’t want to take more than what’s owed to her. Why can’t she just take it all with her and then count out what’s hers’ later?
  • She herself said something in line “I’ll show these ruffians (the pirates) that I’m an honest woman”. She probably didn’t want the pirates to think she stole Bones’ money and fled the inn. The pirates later remark, somewhat surprised, that the money is still there, near the sea-chest.
• Why is it that after Jim is told to not trust a one-legged man does he trust John Silver into the crew?
  • He did suspect Long John Silver to be the "one-legged seafaring man" Billy Bones warned him of, but Silver's jovial attitude and seeming harmlessness won him over.
  • Due to the high frequency of mutilation in the Wooden Ships and Iron Men period, there were hundreds of one-legged former sailors in England at that time. Jim was suspicious at first, but eventually decided that his fears were unjustified.
  • Note that Jim's imagination goes into overdrive about the "one-legged seafaring man," so that by the time Bones dies he's imagining the one-legged man to be some sort of Eldritch Abomination. He wasn't prepared for anyone as ostensibly normal as Silver.
  • Plus, when you consider how frightened Jim was of Billy Bones himself, upon meeting a charming and friendly one-legged man such as Mr John Silver, it's possible Jim just reasoned that he was listening to the paranoid ravings of the story's villain. From page one, Jim was frightened by Billy Bones, but he wasn't ever truly frightened of Long John Silver, even up to the end of the story itself. He didn't always LIKE Silver, but he wasn't ever FRIGHTENED of him like he was Billy Bones.
• Why didn’t Billy Bones ever give Jim the name of the one-legged seaman? As was said above, sea-faring men with missing legs weren’t a rarity during this time period, and a name might’ve helped Jim identify who to look out for. Not to mention it could have prevented the mutiny since he could’ve warned Trelawney against hiring Silver.
  • If a one-legged seaman showed up, Bones wanted Jim to notify him immediately, which meant he wouldn't want him to wait around and figure out the seaman's name first (particularly given the risk of Silver using an assumed name). On that basis, the man's name wouldn't be a particularly useful piece of information for Jim to have from Bones' perspective. Meanwhile, giving Jim Silver's name risked exposing details of his own past which Bones would likely have preferred to keep hidden (and, if Jim started asking questions about Silver, this even risked drawing Silver's attention if he heard about it). While it did later turn out this information would have been useful from Jim's perspective, Bones neither had any way to know that nor was it something he could have factored into his decision about what to tell Jim.
• Early in the narrative, Jim recounts how he was told that “the mail had set [Billy Bones] down the morning before at the Royal George”, before he chose the Benbow Inn for lodging. What does the “Royal George” refer to in this instance?
  • An alternative, probably posher and more expensive given its status as a Mail Coach stop, inn.
• Part of what Jim overhears from the apple barrel is Hands telling Silver that there are still honest crew members who won’t join the mutineers. If these honest men had known something of the pending mutiny, why didn’t they go to the captain about it before Jim did? Otherwise, what was discussed with them that wouldn’t have tipped them off but that did tell Hands they weren’t interested?
  • Hands likely felt them out a bit, complained about the captain, suggested they were likely to get less of a share of the treasure than the rich folks who weren't really working, that sort of thing, and saw how they reacted. Those who really got into it he then pitched the idea of mutiny to, those who responded along the lines of "Yeah it sucks, but what can you do?" he left at that. As such the honest crew never read any more into it than the usual grumbling of sailors.
    • And pragmatically, if they considered it a serious threat, they may decide to keep quiet to avoid ending up the same way as Arrow.

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