Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

A story that about everybody knows and a timeless classic, but all the same the first time I read it I could only get a few chapters into it because I had trouble making out the spellings of just about everything the characters said. A couple weeks back I decided to try reading it again so I got it from the library, and now I have to wonder WHAT story was I reading before? I remembered a few things from the first time like his father supposedly turning up in the river but it was a woman's body and his real father showing up in his room one night, but just about everything else from the beginning to that point I had no recollection of.