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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
+by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
+
+Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
+
+Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #74]
+[Last updated: May 3, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SAWYER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger. The previous edition was updated by Jose
+Menendez.
+
+
+
+
+
+                   THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
+                                BY
+                            MARK TWAIN
+                     (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
+
+
+
+
+                           P R E F A C E
+
+MOST of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or
+two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were
+schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but
+not from an individual--he is a combination of the characteristics of
+three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of
+architecture.
+
+The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children
+and slaves in the West at the period of this story--that is to say,
+thirty or forty years ago.
+
+Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and
+girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account,
+for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what
+they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked,
+and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
+
+                                                            THE AUTHOR.
+
+HARTFORD, 1876.
+
+
+
+                          T O M   S A W Y E R
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"TOM!"
+
+No answer.
+
+"TOM!"
+
+No answer.
+
+"What's gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!"
+
+No answer.
+
+The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the
+room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or
+never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her
+state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not
+service--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.
+She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but
+still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
+
+"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--"
+
+She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching
+under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the
+punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
+
+"I never did see the beat of that boy!"
+
+She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the
+tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom.
+So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and
+shouted:
+
+"Y-o-u-u TOM!"
+
+There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to
+seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
+
+"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in
+there?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that
+truck?"
+
+"I don't know, aunt."
+
+"Well, I know. It's jam--that's what it is. Forty times I've said if
+you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."
+
+The switch hovered in the air--the peril was desperate--
+
+"My! Look behind you, aunt!"
+
+The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The
+lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and
+disappeared over it.
+
+His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle
+laugh.
+
+"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks
+enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old
+fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks,
+as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days,
+and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how
+long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he
+can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down
+again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy,
+and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile
+the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for
+us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my
+own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash
+him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so,
+and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man
+that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the
+Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening, *
+and [* Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll just be obleeged to make him
+work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work
+Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more
+than he hates anything else, and I've GOT to do some of my duty by him,
+or I'll be the ruination of the child."
+
+Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home
+barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's
+wood and split the kindlings before supper--at least he was there in
+time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the
+work. Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already
+through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a
+quiet boy, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.
+
+While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity
+offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and
+very deep--for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like
+many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she
+was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she
+loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low
+cunning. Said she:
+
+"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Powerful warm, warn't it?"
+
+"Yes'm."
+
+"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"
+
+A bit of a scare shot through Tom--a touch of uncomfortable suspicion.
+He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:
+
+"No'm--well, not very much."
+
+The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:
+
+"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect
+that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing
+that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew
+where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:
+
+"Some of us pumped on our heads--mine's damp yet. See?"
+
+Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of
+circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new
+inspiration:
+
+"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to
+pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"
+
+The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His
+shirt collar was securely sewed.
+
+"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey
+and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a
+singed cat, as the saying is--better'n you look. THIS time."
+
+She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom
+had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.
+
+But Sidney said:
+
+"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread,
+but it's black."
+
+"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!"
+
+But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:
+
+"Siddy, I'll lick you for that."
+
+In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into
+the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them--one needle
+carried white thread and the other black. He said:
+
+"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes
+she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to
+geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other--I can't keep the run of 'em. But
+I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!"
+
+He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very
+well though--and loathed him.
+
+Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles.
+Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him
+than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore
+them down and drove them out of his mind for the time--just as men's
+misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This
+new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just
+acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed.
+It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble,
+produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short
+intervals in the midst of the music--the reader probably remembers how
+to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave
+him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full
+of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an
+astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet--no doubt, as far as
+strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with
+the boy, not the astronomer.
+
+The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom
+checked his whistle. A stranger was before him--a boy a shade larger
+than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive
+curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy
+was well dressed, too--well dressed on a week-day. This was simply
+astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth
+roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes
+on--and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of
+ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The
+more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his
+nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed
+to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved--but
+only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all
+the time. Finally Tom said:
+
+"I can lick you!"
+
+"I'd like to see you try it."
+
+"Well, I can do it."
+
+"No you can't, either."
+
+"Yes I can."
+
+"No you can't."
+
+"I can."
+
+"You can't."
+
+"Can!"
+
+"Can't!"
+
+An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe."
+
+"Well I 'low I'll MAKE it my business."
+
+"Well why don't you?"
+
+"If you say much, I will."
+
+"Much--much--MUCH. There now."
+
+"Oh, you think you're mighty smart, DON'T you? I could lick you with
+one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to."
+
+"Well why don't you DO it? You SAY you can do it."
+
+"Well I WILL, if you fool with me."
+
+"Oh yes--I've seen whole families in the same fix."
+
+"Smarty! You think you're SOME, now, DON'T you? Oh, what a hat!"
+
+"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it
+off--and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs."
+
+"You're a liar!"
+
+"You're another."
+
+"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up."
+
+"Aw--take a walk!"
+
+"Say--if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a
+rock off'n your head."
+
+"Oh, of COURSE you will."
+
+"Well I WILL."
+
+"Well why don't you DO it then? What do you keep SAYING you will for?
+Why don't you DO it? It's because you're afraid."
+
+"I AIN'T afraid."
+
+"You are."
+
+"I ain't."
+
+"You are."
+
+Another pause, and more eying and sidling around each other. Presently
+they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:
+
+"Get away from here!"
+
+"Go away yourself!"
+
+"I won't."
+
+"I won't either."
+
+So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and
+both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with
+hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both
+were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution,
+and Tom said:
+
+"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he
+can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too."
+
+"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger
+than he is--and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too."
+[Both brothers were imaginary.]
+
+"That's a lie."
+
+"YOUR saying so don't make it so."
+
+Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said:
+
+"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand
+up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep."
+
+The new boy stepped over promptly, and said:
+
+"Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you do it."
+
+"Don't you crowd me now; you better look out."
+
+"Well, you SAID you'd do it--why don't you do it?"
+
+"By jingo! for two cents I WILL do it."
+
+The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out
+with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant both boys
+were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats; and
+for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other's hair and
+clothes, punched and scratched each other's nose, and covered
+themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and
+through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and
+pounding him with his fists. "Holler 'nuff!" said he.
+
+The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying--mainly from rage.
+
+"Holler 'nuff!"--and the pounding went on.
+
+At last the stranger got out a smothered "'Nuff!" and Tom let him up
+and said:
+
+"Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with next
+time."
+
+The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing,
+snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and
+threatening what he would do to Tom the "next time he caught him out."
+To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather, and
+as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw
+it and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and ran like
+an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he
+lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the
+enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the
+window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called
+Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went
+away; but he said he "'lowed" to "lay" for that boy.
+
+He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in
+at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt;
+and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn
+his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in
+its firmness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and
+fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if
+the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in
+every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom
+and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond
+the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far
+enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.
+
+Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a
+long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and
+a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board
+fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a
+burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost
+plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant
+whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed
+fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at
+the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from
+the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but
+now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at
+the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there
+waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling,
+fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only
+a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of
+water under an hour--and even then somebody generally had to go after
+him. Tom said:
+
+"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some."
+
+Jim shook his head and said:
+
+"Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an' git dis
+water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars
+Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend
+to my own business--she 'lowed SHE'D 'tend to de whitewashin'."
+
+"Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always
+talks. Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only a a minute. SHE won't
+ever know."
+
+"Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n
+me. 'Deed she would."
+
+"SHE! She never licks anybody--whacks 'em over the head with her
+thimble--and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but
+talk don't hurt--anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you
+a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!"
+
+Jim began to waver.
+
+"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw."
+
+"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I's powerful
+'fraid ole missis--"
+
+"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe."
+
+Jim was only human--this attraction was too much for him. He put down
+his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing
+interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was
+flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was
+whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field
+with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.
+
+But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had
+planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys
+would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and
+they would make a world of fun of him for having to work--the very
+thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and
+examined it--bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an
+exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an
+hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his
+pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark
+and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a
+great, magnificent inspiration.
+
+He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in
+sight presently--the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been
+dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that his
+heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and
+giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned
+ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As
+he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned
+far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious
+pomp and circumstance--for he was personating the Big Missouri, and
+considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and
+captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself
+standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:
+
+"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he
+drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.
+
+"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and
+stiffened down his sides.
+
+"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow!
+Chow!" His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles--for it was
+representing a forty-foot wheel.
+
+"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-lingling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!"
+The left hand began to describe circles.
+
+"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead
+on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow!
+Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! LIVELY now!
+Come--out with your spring-line--what're you about there! Take a turn
+round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now--let her
+go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!"
+(trying the gauge-cocks).
+
+Tom went on whitewashing--paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben
+stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"
+
+No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then
+he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as
+before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the
+apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:
+
+"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"
+
+Tom wheeled suddenly and said:
+
+"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."
+
+"Say--I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of
+course you'd druther WORK--wouldn't you? Course you would!"
+
+Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:
+
+"What do you call work?"
+
+"Why, ain't THAT work?"
+
+Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:
+
+"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, is, it suits Tom
+Sawyer."
+
+"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you LIKE it?"
+
+The brush continued to move.
+
+"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get
+a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
+
+That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom
+swept his brush daintily back and forth--stepped back to note the
+effect--added a touch here and there--criticised the effect again--Ben
+watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more
+absorbed. Presently he said:
+
+"Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little."
+
+Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:
+
+"No--no--I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's
+awful particular about this fence--right here on the street, you know
+--but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and SHE wouldn't. Yes,
+she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very
+careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two
+thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."
+
+"No--is that so? Oh come, now--lemme just try. Only just a little--I'd
+let YOU, if you was me, Tom."
+
+"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly--well, Jim wanted to
+do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't
+let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this
+fence and anything was to happen to it--"
+
+"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say--I'll give
+you the core of my apple."
+
+"Well, here--No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard--"
+
+"I'll give you ALL of it!"
+
+Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his
+heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in
+the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by,
+dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more
+innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every
+little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time
+Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for
+a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in
+for a dead rat and a string to swing it with--and so on, and so on,
+hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being
+a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling
+in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles,
+part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a
+spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk,
+a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six
+fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a
+dog-collar--but no dog--the handle of a knife, four pieces of
+orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.
+
+He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while--plenty of company
+--and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out
+of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.
+
+Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He
+had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely,
+that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only
+necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great
+and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have
+comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do,
+and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And
+this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers
+or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or
+climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in
+England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles
+on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them
+considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service,
+that would turn it into work and then they would resign.
+
+The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place
+in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to
+report.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an open
+window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom,
+breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer
+air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing murmur
+of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her knitting
+--for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her lap. Her
+spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had thought
+that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing him
+place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: "Mayn't
+I go and play now, aunt?"
+
+"What, a'ready? How much have you done?"
+
+"It's all done, aunt."
+
+"Tom, don't lie to me--I can't bear it."
+
+"I ain't, aunt; it IS all done."
+
+Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see
+for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent.
+of Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence whitewashed,
+and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even
+a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable.
+She said:
+
+"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you're
+a mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding, "But
+it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'long
+and play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you."
+
+She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took
+him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to
+him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a
+treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort.
+And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a
+doughnut.
+
+Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway
+that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and
+the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a
+hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties
+and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect,
+and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general
+thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at
+peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his
+black thread and getting him into trouble.
+
+Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by
+the back of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the
+reach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square
+of the village, where two "military" companies of boys had met for
+conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of
+these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These
+two great commanders did not condescend to fight in person--that being
+better suited to the still smaller fry--but sat together on an eminence
+and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through
+aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and
+hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged,
+the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the
+necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and
+marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.
+
+As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new
+girl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair
+plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered
+pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A
+certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a
+memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction;
+he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor
+little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had
+confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest
+boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time
+she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is
+done.
+
+He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she
+had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present,
+and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to
+win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some
+time; but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous
+gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl
+was wending her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and
+leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer.
+She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom
+heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face
+lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment
+before she disappeared.
+
+The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and
+then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if
+he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction.
+Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his
+nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side,
+in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally
+his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he
+hopped away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But
+only for a minute--only while he could button the flower inside his
+jacket, next his heart--or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not
+much posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.
+
+He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing
+off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom
+comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some
+window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode
+home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.
+
+All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered
+"what had got into the child." He took a good scolding about clodding
+Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar
+under his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said:
+
+"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it."
+
+"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into
+that sugar if I warn't watching you."
+
+Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his
+immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl--a sort of glorying over Tom which
+was wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped
+and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even
+controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would
+not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly
+still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and
+there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model
+"catch it." He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold
+himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck
+discharging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to
+himself, "Now it's coming!" And the next instant he was sprawling on
+the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom cried
+out:
+
+"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting ME for?--Sid broke it!"
+
+Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But
+when she got her tongue again, she only said:
+
+"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some
+other audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."
+
+Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something
+kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a
+confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that.
+So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart.
+Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart
+his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the
+consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take notice
+of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, now and then,
+through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured
+himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching
+one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and
+die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured
+himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and
+his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how
+her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back
+her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would lie
+there cold and white and make no sign--a poor little sufferer, whose
+griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos
+of these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like to
+choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he
+winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a
+luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear
+to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it;
+it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin
+Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an
+age-long visit of one week to the country, he got up and moved in
+clouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in
+at the other.
+
+He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought
+desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the
+river invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and
+contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while,
+that he could only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without
+undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought
+of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily
+increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she
+knew? Would she cry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms
+around his neck and comfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all
+the hollow world? This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable
+suffering that he worked it over and over again in his mind and set it
+up in new and varied lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he
+rose up sighing and departed in the darkness.
+
+About half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street
+to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell
+upon his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the
+curtain of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He
+climbed the fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till
+he stood under that window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion;
+then he laid him down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon
+his back, with his hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor
+wilted flower. And thus he would die--out in the cold world, with no
+shelter over his homeless head, no friendly hand to wipe the
+death-damps from his brow, no loving face to bend pityingly over him
+when the great agony came. And thus SHE would see him when she looked
+out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon
+his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright
+young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?
+
+The window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the
+holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!
+
+The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz
+as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound
+as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the
+fence and shot away in the gloom.
+
+Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his
+drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he
+had any dim idea of making any "references to allusions," he thought
+better of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom's eye.
+
+Tom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made
+mental note of the omission.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful
+village like a benediction. Breakfast over, Aunt Polly had family
+worship: it began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid
+courses of Scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of
+originality; and from the summit of this she delivered a grim chapter
+of the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.
+
+Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to "get
+his verses." Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his
+energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the
+Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter.
+At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson,
+but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human
+thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary
+took his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through
+the fog:
+
+"Blessed are the--a--a--"
+
+"Poor"--
+
+"Yes--poor; blessed are the poor--a--a--"
+
+"In spirit--"
+
+"In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they--they--"
+
+"THEIRS--"
+
+"For THEIRS. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
+of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they--they--"
+
+"Sh--"
+
+"For they--a--"
+
+"S, H, A--"
+
+"For they S, H--Oh, I don't know what it is!"
+
+"SHALL!"
+
+"Oh, SHALL! for they shall--for they shall--a--a--shall mourn--a--a--
+blessed are they that shall--they that--a--they that shall mourn, for
+they shall--a--shall WHAT? Why don't you tell me, Mary?--what do you
+want to be so mean for?"
+
+"Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't
+do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom,
+you'll manage it--and if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice.
+There, now, that's a good boy."
+
+"All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is."
+
+"Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it's nice, it is nice."
+
+"You bet you that's so, Mary. All right, I'll tackle it again."
+
+And he did "tackle it again"--and under the double pressure of
+curiosity and prospective gain he did it with such spirit that he
+accomplished a shining success. Mary gave him a brand-new "Barlow"
+knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that
+swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would
+not cut anything, but it was a "sure-enough" Barlow, and there was
+inconceivable grandeur in that--though where the Western boys ever got
+the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its
+injury is an imposing mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom
+contrived to scarify the cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin
+on the bureau, when he was called off to dress for Sunday-school.
+
+Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap, and he went
+outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there; then he
+dipped the soap in the water and laid it down; turned up his sleeves;
+poured out the water on the ground, gently, and then entered the
+kitchen and began to wipe his face diligently on the towel behind the
+door. But Mary removed the towel and said:
+
+"Now ain't you ashamed, Tom. You mustn't be so bad. Water won't hurt
+you."
+
+Tom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was refilled, and this time
+he stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big
+breath and began. When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes
+shut and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony
+of suds and water was dripping from his face. But when he emerged from
+the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped
+short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line
+there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in
+front and backward around his neck. Mary took him in hand, and when she
+was done with him he was a man and a brother, without distinction of
+color, and his saturated hair was neatly brushed, and its short curls
+wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general effect. [He privately
+smoothed out the curls, with labor and difficulty, and plastered his
+hair close down to his head; for he held curls to be effeminate, and
+his own filled his life with bitterness.] Then Mary got out a suit of
+his clothing that had been used only on Sundays during two years--they
+were simply called his "other clothes"--and so by that we know the
+size of his wardrobe. The girl "put him to rights" after he had dressed
+himself; she buttoned his neat roundabout up to his chin, turned his
+vast shirt collar down over his shoulders, brushed him off and crowned
+him with his speckled straw hat. He now looked exceedingly improved and
+uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable as he looked; for there
+was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanliness that galled him. He
+hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted; she
+coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was the custom, and brought them
+out. He lost his temper and said he was always being made to do
+everything he didn't want to do. But Mary said, persuasively:
+
+"Please, Tom--that's a good boy."
+
+So he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was soon ready, and the three
+children set out for Sunday-school--a place that Tom hated with his
+whole heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it.
+
+Sabbath-school hours were from nine to half-past ten; and then church
+service. Two of the children always remained for the sermon
+voluntarily, and the other always remained too--for stronger reasons.
+The church's high-backed, uncushioned pews would seat about three
+hundred persons; the edifice was but a small, plain affair, with a sort
+of pine board tree-box on top of it for a steeple. At the door Tom
+dropped back a step and accosted a Sunday-dressed comrade:
+
+"Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What'll you take for her?"
+
+"What'll you give?"
+
+"Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook."
+
+"Less see 'em."
+
+Tom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and the property changed hands.
+Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and
+some small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones. He waylaid other
+boys as they came, and went on buying tickets of various colors ten or
+fifteen minutes longer. He entered the church, now, with a swarm of
+clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started a
+quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave,
+elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a
+boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy
+turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear
+him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole
+class were of a pattern--restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they
+came to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses
+perfectly, but had to be prompted all along. However, they worried
+through, and each got his reward--in small blue tickets, each with a
+passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of
+the recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be
+exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow
+tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty
+cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would
+have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even
+for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way--it
+was the patient work of two years--and a boy of German parentage had
+won four or five. He once recited three thousand verses without
+stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and
+he was little better than an idiot from that day forth--a grievous
+misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the
+superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out
+and "spread himself." Only the older pupils managed to keep their
+tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and
+so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy
+circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for
+that day that on the spot every scholar's heart was fired with a fresh
+ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks. It is possible that Tom's
+mental stomach had never really hungered for one of those prizes, but
+unquestionably his entire being had for many a day longed for the glory
+and the eclat that came with it.
+
+In due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with
+a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its
+leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent
+makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as
+necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer
+who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert
+--though why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of
+music is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a
+slim creature of thirty-five, with a sandy goatee and short sandy hair;
+he wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper edge almost reached his
+ears and whose sharp points curved forward abreast the corners of his
+mouth--a fence that compelled a straight lookout ahead, and a turning
+of the whole body when a side view was required; his chin was propped
+on a spreading cravat which was as broad and as long as a bank-note,
+and had fringed ends; his boot toes were turned sharply up, in the
+fashion of the day, like sleigh-runners--an effect patiently and
+laboriously produced by the young men by sitting with their toes
+pressed against a wall for hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest
+of mien, and very sincere and honest at heart; and he held sacred
+things and places in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly
+matters, that unconsciously to himself his Sunday-school voice had
+acquired a peculiar intonation which was wholly absent on week-days. He
+began after this fashion:
+
+"Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty
+as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There
+--that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see
+one little girl who is looking out of the window--I am afraid she
+thinks I am out there somewhere--perhaps up in one of the trees making
+a speech to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] I want to tell you
+how good it makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces
+assembled in a place like this, learning to do right and be good." And
+so forth and so on. It is not necessary to set down the rest of the
+oration. It was of a pattern which does not vary, and so it is familiar
+to us all.
+
+The latter third of the speech was marred by the resumption of fights
+and other recreations among certain of the bad boys, and by fidgetings
+and whisperings that extended far and wide, washing even to the bases
+of isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid and Mary. But now every
+sound ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of Mr. Walters' voice, and
+the conclusion of the speech was received with a burst of silent
+gratitude.
+
+A good part of the whispering had been occasioned by an event which
+was more or less rare--the entrance of visitors: lawyer Thatcher,
+accompanied by a very feeble and aged man; a fine, portly, middle-aged
+gentleman with iron-gray hair; and a dignified lady who was doubtless
+the latter's wife. The lady was leading a child. Tom had been restless
+and full of chafings and repinings; conscience-smitten, too--he could
+not meet Amy Lawrence's eye, he could not brook her loving gaze. But
+when he saw this small new-comer his soul was all ablaze with bliss in
+a moment. The next moment he was "showing off" with all his might
+--cuffing boys, pulling hair, making faces--in a word, using every art
+that seemed likely to fascinate a girl and win her applause. His
+exaltation had but one alloy--the memory of his humiliation in this
+angel's garden--and that record in sand was fast washing out, under
+the waves of happiness that were sweeping over it now.
+
+The visitors were given the highest seat of honor, and as soon as Mr.
+Walters' speech was finished, he introduced them to the school. The
+middle-aged man turned out to be a prodigious personage--no less a one
+than the county judge--altogether the most august creation these
+children had ever looked upon--and they wondered what kind of material
+he was made of--and they half wanted to hear him roar, and were half
+afraid he might, too. He was from Constantinople, twelve miles away--so
+he had travelled, and seen the world--these very eyes had looked upon
+the county court-house--which was said to have a tin roof. The awe
+which these reflections inspired was attested by the impressive silence
+and the ranks of staring eyes. This was the great Judge Thatcher,
+brother of their own lawyer. Jeff Thatcher immediately went forward, to
+be familiar with the great man and be envied by the school. It would
+have been music to his soul to hear the whisperings:
+
+"Look at him, Jim! He's a going up there. Say--look! he's a going to
+shake hands with him--he IS shaking hands with him! By jings, don't you
+wish you was Jeff?"
+
+Mr. Walters fell to "showing off," with all sorts of official
+bustlings and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments,
+discharging directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a
+target. The librarian "showed off"--running hither and thither with his
+arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that
+insect authority delights in. The young lady teachers "showed off"
+--bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting
+pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones
+lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers "showed off" with small
+scoldings and other little displays of authority and fine attention to
+discipline--and most of the teachers, of both sexes, found business up
+at the library, by the pulpit; and it was business that frequently had
+to be done over again two or three times (with much seeming vexation).
+The little girls "showed off" in various ways, and the little boys
+"showed off" with such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads
+and the murmur of scufflings. And above it all the great man sat and
+beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the house, and warmed himself
+in the sun of his own grandeur--for he was "showing off," too.
+
+There was only one thing wanting to make Mr. Walters' ecstasy
+complete, and that was a chance to deliver a Bible-prize and exhibit a
+prodigy. Several pupils had a few yellow tickets, but none had enough
+--he had been around among the star pupils inquiring. He would have given
+worlds, now, to have that German lad back again with a sound mind.
+
+And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward
+with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and
+demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters
+was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten
+years. But there was no getting around it--here were the certified
+checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated
+to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was
+announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the
+decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero
+up to the judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to
+gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy--but
+those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too
+late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by
+trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling
+whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes
+of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.
+
+The prize was delivered to Tom with as much effusion as the
+superintendent could pump up under the circumstances; but it lacked
+somewhat of the true gush, for the poor fellow's instinct taught him
+that there was a mystery here that could not well bear the light,
+perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two
+thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises--a dozen would
+strain his capacity, without a doubt.
+
+Amy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she tried to make Tom see it in
+her face--but he wouldn't look. She wondered; then she was just a grain
+troubled; next a dim suspicion came and went--came again; she watched;
+a furtive glance told her worlds--and then her heart broke, and she was
+jealous, and angry, and the tears came and she hated everybody. Tom
+most of all (she thought).
+
+Tom was introduced to the Judge; but his tongue was tied, his breath
+would hardly come, his heart quaked--partly because of the awful
+greatness of the man, but mainly because he was her parent. He would
+have liked to fall down and worship him, if it were in the dark. The
+Judge put his hand on Tom's head and called him a fine little man, and
+asked him what his name was. The boy stammered, gasped, and got it out:
+
+"Tom."
+
+"Oh, no, not Tom--it is--"
+
+"Thomas."
+
+"Ah, that's it. I thought there was more to it, maybe. That's very
+well. But you've another one I daresay, and you'll tell it to me, won't
+you?"
+
+"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas," said Walters, "and say
+sir. You mustn't forget your manners."
+
+"Thomas Sawyer--sir."
+
+"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow.
+Two thousand verses is a great many--very, very great many. And you
+never can be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for
+knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what
+makes great men and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man
+yourself, some day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say, It's all
+owing to the precious Sunday-school privileges of my boyhood--it's all
+owing to my dear teachers that taught me to learn--it's all owing to
+the good superintendent, who encouraged me, and watched over me, and
+gave me a beautiful Bible--a splendid elegant Bible--to keep and have
+it all for my own, always--it's all owing to right bringing up! That is
+what you will say, Thomas--and you wouldn't take any money for those
+two thousand verses--no indeed you wouldn't. And now you wouldn't mind
+telling me and this lady some of the things you've learned--no, I know
+you wouldn't--for we are proud of little boys that learn. Now, no
+doubt you know the names of all the twelve disciples. Won't you tell us
+the names of the first two that were appointed?"
+
+Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed,
+now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart sank within him. He said to
+himself, it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest
+question--why DID the Judge ask him? Yet he felt obliged to speak up
+and say:
+
+"Answer the gentleman, Thomas--don't be afraid."
+
+Tom still hung fire.
+
+"Now I know you'll tell me," said the lady. "The names of the first
+two disciples were--"
+
+"DAVID AND GOLIAH!"
+
+Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ABOUT half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to
+ring, and presently the people began to gather for the morning sermon.
+The Sunday-school children distributed themselves about the house and
+occupied pews with their parents, so as to be under supervision. Aunt
+Polly came, and Tom and Sid and Mary sat with her--Tom being placed
+next the aisle, in order that he might be as far away from the open
+window and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible. The crowd
+filed up the aisles: the aged and needy postmaster, who had seen better
+days; the mayor and his wife--for they had a mayor there, among other
+unnecessaries; the justice of the peace; the widow Douglass, fair,
+smart, and forty, a generous, good-hearted soul and well-to-do, her
+hill mansion the only palace in the town, and the most hospitable and
+much the most lavish in the matter of festivities that St. Petersburg
+could boast; the bent and venerable Major and Mrs. Ward; lawyer
+Riverson, the new notable from a distance; next the belle of the
+village, followed by a troop of lawn-clad and ribbon-decked young
+heart-breakers; then all the young clerks in town in a body--for they
+had stood in the vestibule sucking their cane-heads, a circling wall of
+oiled and simpering admirers, till the last girl had run their gantlet;
+and last of all came the Model Boy, Willie Mufferson, taking as heedful
+care of his mother as if she were cut glass. He always brought his
+mother to church, and was the pride of all the matrons. The boys all
+hated him, he was so good. And besides, he had been "thrown up to them"
+so much. His white handkerchief was hanging out of his pocket behind, as
+usual on Sundays--accidentally. Tom had no handkerchief, and he looked
+upon boys who had as snobs.
+
+The congregation being fully assembled, now, the bell rang once more,
+to warn laggards and stragglers, and then a solemn hush fell upon the
+church which was only broken by the tittering and whispering of the
+choir in the gallery. The choir always tittered and whispered all
+through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred,
+but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago,
+and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in
+some foreign country.
+
+The minister gave out the hymn, and read it through with a relish, in
+a peculiar style which was much admired in that part of the country.
+His voice began on a medium key and climbed steadily up till it reached
+a certain point, where it bore with strong emphasis upon the topmost
+word and then plunged down as if from a spring-board:
+
+  Shall I be car-ri-ed toe the skies, on flow'ry BEDS of ease,
+
+  Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' BLOODY seas?
+
+He was regarded as a wonderful reader. At church "sociables" he was
+always called upon to read poetry; and when he was through, the ladies
+would lift up their hands and let them fall helplessly in their laps,
+and "wall" their eyes, and shake their heads, as much as to say, "Words
+cannot express it; it is too beautiful, TOO beautiful for this mortal
+earth."
+
+After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into
+a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and
+things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of
+doom--a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities,
+away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is
+to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.
+
+And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went
+into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the
+church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself;
+for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United
+States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the
+President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed
+by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of
+European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light
+and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear
+withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with
+a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace
+and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a
+grateful harvest of good. Amen.
+
+There was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat
+down. The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer,
+he only endured it--if he even did that much. He was restive all
+through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously
+--for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the
+clergyman's regular route over it--and when a little trifle of new
+matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature
+resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the
+midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of
+him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together,
+embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that
+it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread
+of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs
+and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat-tails; going
+through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if it knew it was perfectly
+safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom's hands itched to grab for
+it they did not dare--he believed his soul would be instantly destroyed
+if he did such a thing while the prayer was going on. But with the
+closing sentence his hand began to curve and steal forward; and the
+instant the "Amen" was out the fly was a prisoner of war. His aunt
+detected the act and made him let it go.
+
+The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through
+an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod
+--and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone
+and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be
+hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after
+church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew
+anything else about the discourse. However, this time he was really
+interested for a little while. The minister made a grand and moving
+picture of the assembling together of the world's hosts at the
+millennium when the lion and the lamb should lie down together and a
+little child should lead them. But the pathos, the lesson, the moral of
+the great spectacle were lost upon the boy; he only thought of the
+conspicuousness of the principal character before the on-looking
+nations; his face lit with the thought, and he said to himself that he
+wished he could be that child, if it was a tame lion.
+
+Now he lapsed into suffering again, as the dry argument was resumed.
+Presently he bethought him of a treasure he had and got it out. It was
+a large black beetle with formidable jaws--a "pinchbug," he called it.
+It was in a percussion-cap box. The first thing the beetle did was to
+take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went
+floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger
+went into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless
+legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was
+safe out of his reach. Other people uninterested in the sermon found
+relief in the beetle, and they eyed it too. Presently a vagrant poodle
+dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and
+the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change. He spied the beetle;
+the drooping tail lifted and wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked
+around it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it again;
+grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip and made a
+gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made another, and another;
+began to enjoy the diversion; subsided to his stomach with the beetle
+between his paws, and continued his experiments; grew weary at last,
+and then indifferent and absent-minded. His head nodded, and little by
+little his chin descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There
+was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle's head, and the beetle fell a
+couple of yards away, and lit on its back once more. The neighboring
+spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind
+fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy. The dog looked
+foolish, and probably felt so; but there was resentment in his heart,
+too, and a craving for revenge. So he went to the beetle and began a
+wary attack on it again; jumping at it from every point of a circle,
+lighting with his fore-paws within an inch of the creature, making even
+closer snatches at it with his teeth, and jerking his head till his
+ears flapped again. But he grew tired once more, after a while; tried
+to amuse himself with a fly but found no relief; followed an ant
+around, with his nose close to the floor, and quickly wearied of that;
+yawned, sighed, forgot the beetle entirely, and sat down on it. Then
+there was a wild yelp of agony and the poodle went sailing up the
+aisle; the yelps continued, and so did the dog; he crossed the house in
+front of the altar; he flew down the other aisle; he crossed before the
+doors; he clamored up the home-stretch; his anguish grew with his
+progress, till presently he was but a woolly comet moving in its orbit
+with the gleam and the speed of light. At last the frantic sufferer
+sheered from its course, and sprang into its master's lap; he flung it
+out of the window, and the voice of distress quickly thinned away and
+died in the distance.
+
+By this time the whole church was red-faced and suffocating with
+suppressed laughter, and the sermon had come to a dead standstill. The
+discourse was resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all
+possibility of impressiveness being at an end; for even the gravest
+sentiments were constantly being received with a smothered burst of
+unholy mirth, under cover of some remote pew-back, as if the poor
+parson had said a rarely facetious thing. It was a genuine relief to
+the whole congregation when the ordeal was over and the benediction
+pronounced.
+
+Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking to himself that there
+was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of
+variety in it. He had but one marring thought; he was willing that the
+dog should play with his pinchbug, but he did not think it was upright
+in him to carry it off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+MONDAY morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday morning always found
+him so--because it began another week's slow suffering in school. He
+generally began that day with wishing he had had no intervening
+holiday, it made the going into captivity and fetters again so much
+more odious.
+
+Tom lay thinking. Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was
+sick; then he could stay home from school. Here was a vague
+possibility. He canvassed his system. No ailment was found, and he
+investigated again. This time he thought he could detect colicky
+symptoms, and he began to encourage them with considerable hope. But
+they soon grew feeble, and presently died wholly away. He reflected
+further. Suddenly he discovered something. One of his upper front teeth
+was loose. This was lucky; he was about to begin to groan, as a
+"starter," as he called it, when it occurred to him that if he came
+into court with that argument, his aunt would pull it out, and that
+would hurt. So he thought he would hold the tooth in reserve for the
+present, and seek further. Nothing offered for some little time, and
+then he remembered hearing the doctor tell about a certain thing that
+laid up a patient for two or three weeks and threatened to make him
+lose a finger. So the boy eagerly drew his sore toe from under the
+sheet and held it up for inspection. But now he did not know the
+necessary symptoms. However, it seemed well worth while to chance it,
+so he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.
+
+But Sid slept on unconscious.
+
+Tom groaned louder, and fancied that he began to feel pain in the toe.
+
+No result from Sid.
+
+Tom was panting with his exertions by this time. He took a rest and
+then swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans.
+
+Sid snored on.
+
+Tom was aggravated. He said, "Sid, Sid!" and shook him. This course
+worked well, and Tom began to groan again. Sid yawned, stretched, then
+brought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare at
+Tom. Tom went on groaning. Sid said:
+
+"Tom! Say, Tom!" [No response.] "Here, Tom! TOM! What is the matter,
+Tom?" And he shook him and looked in his face anxiously.
+
+Tom moaned out:
+
+"Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me."
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call auntie."
+
+"No--never mind. It'll be over by and by, maybe. Don't call anybody."
+
+"But I must! DON'T groan so, Tom, it's awful. How long you been this
+way?"
+
+"Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me."
+
+"Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? Oh, Tom, DON'T! It makes my
+flesh crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the matter?"
+
+"I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.] Everything you've ever done
+to me. When I'm gone--"
+
+"Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom--oh, don't. Maybe--"
+
+"I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em so, Sid. And Sid, you
+give my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that's
+come to town, and tell her--"
+
+But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone. Tom was suffering in
+reality, now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so his
+groans had gathered quite a genuine tone.
+
+Sid flew down-stairs and said:
+
+"Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!"
+
+"Dying!"
+
+"Yes'm. Don't wait--come quick!"
+
+"Rubbage! I don't believe it!"
+
+But she fled up-stairs, nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels.
+And her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled. When she reached
+the bedside she gasped out:
+
+"You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with you?"
+
+"Oh, auntie, I'm--"
+
+"What's the matter with you--what is the matter with you, child?"
+
+"Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!"
+
+The old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried a
+little, then did both together. This restored her and she said:
+
+"Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you shut up that nonsense and
+climb out of this."
+
+The groans ceased and the pain vanished from the toe. The boy felt a
+little foolish, and he said:
+
+"Aunt Polly, it SEEMED mortified, and it hurt so I never minded my
+tooth at all."
+
+"Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with your tooth?"
+
+"One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful."
+
+"There, there, now, don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth.
+Well--your tooth IS loose, but you're not going to die about that.
+Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen."
+
+Tom said:
+
+"Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wish
+I may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stay
+home from school."
+
+"Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thought
+you'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love
+you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart
+with your outrageousness." By this time the dental instruments were
+ready. The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's tooth
+with a loop and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized the
+chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. The
+tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now.
+
+But all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to school
+after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap in
+his upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and
+admirable way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the
+exhibition; and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of
+fascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly
+without an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and
+he said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to
+spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and he
+wandered away a dismantled hero.
+
+Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry
+Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and
+dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless
+and vulgar and bad--and because all their children admired him so, and
+delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like
+him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied
+Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders
+not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance.
+Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown
+men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat
+was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat,
+when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons
+far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat
+of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs
+dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.
+
+Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps
+in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to
+school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could
+go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it
+suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he
+pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring
+and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor
+put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything
+that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every
+harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.
+
+Tom hailed the romantic outcast:
+
+"Hello, Huckleberry!"
+
+"Hello yourself, and see how you like it."
+
+"What's that you got?"
+
+"Dead cat."
+
+"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him?"
+
+"Bought him off'n a boy."
+
+"What did you give?"
+
+"I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house."
+
+"Where'd you get the blue ticket?"
+
+"Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick."
+
+"Say--what is dead cats good for, Huck?"
+
+"Good for? Cure warts with."
+
+"No! Is that so? I know something that's better."
+
+"I bet you don't. What is it?"
+
+"Why, spunk-water."
+
+"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water."
+
+"You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?"
+
+"No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did."
+
+"Who told you so!"
+
+"Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnny
+told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, and
+the nigger told me. There now!"
+
+"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the nigger. I
+don't know HIM. But I never see a nigger that WOULDN'T lie. Shucks! Now
+you tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck."
+
+"Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten stump where the
+rain-water was."
+
+"In the daytime?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"With his face to the stump?"
+
+"Yes. Least I reckon so."
+
+"Did he say anything?"
+
+"I don't reckon he did. I don't know."
+
+"Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame
+fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go
+all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a
+spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the
+stump and jam your hand in and say:
+
+  'Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts,
+   Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these warts,'
+
+and then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then
+turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody.
+Because if you speak the charm's busted."
+
+"Well, that sounds like a good way; but that ain't the way Bob Tanner
+done."
+
+"No, sir, you can bet he didn't, becuz he's the wartiest boy in this
+town; and he wouldn't have a wart on him if he'd knowed how to work
+spunk-water. I've took off thousands of warts off of my hands that way,
+Huck. I play with frogs so much that I've always got considerable many
+warts. Sometimes I take 'em off with a bean."
+
+"Yes, bean's good. I've done that."
+
+"Have you? What's your way?"
+
+"You take and split the bean, and cut the wart so as to get some
+blood, and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean and take and
+dig a hole and bury it 'bout midnight at the crossroads in the dark of
+the moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean. You see that piece
+that's got the blood on it will keep drawing and drawing, trying to
+fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the
+wart, and pretty soon off she comes."
+
+"Yes, that's it, Huck--that's it; though when you're burying it if you
+say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to bother me!' it's better.
+That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and
+most everywheres. But say--how do you cure 'em with dead cats?"
+
+"Why, you take your cat and go and get in the graveyard 'long about
+midnight when somebody that was wicked has been buried; and when it's
+midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can't see
+'em, you can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear 'em talk;
+and when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after 'em
+and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm
+done with ye!' That'll fetch ANY wart."
+
+"Sounds right. D'you ever try it, Huck?"
+
+"No, but old Mother Hopkins told me."
+
+"Well, I reckon it's so, then. Becuz they say she's a witch."
+
+"Say! Why, Tom, I KNOW she is. She witched pap. Pap says so his own
+self. He come along one day, and he see she was a-witching him, so he
+took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged, he'd a got her. Well, that
+very night he rolled off'n a shed wher' he was a layin drunk, and broke
+his arm."
+
+"Why, that's awful. How did he know she was a-witching him?"
+
+"Lord, pap can tell, easy. Pap says when they keep looking at you
+right stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz
+when they mumble they're saying the Lord's Prayer backards."
+
+"Say, Hucky, when you going to try the cat?"
+
+"To-night. I reckon they'll come after old Hoss Williams to-night."
+
+"But they buried him Saturday. Didn't they get him Saturday night?"
+
+"Why, how you talk! How could their charms work till midnight?--and
+THEN it's Sunday. Devils don't slosh around much of a Sunday, I don't
+reckon."
+
+"I never thought of that. That's so. Lemme go with you?"
+
+"Of course--if you ain't afeard."
+
+"Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?"
+
+"Yes--and you meow back, if you get a chance. Last time, you kep' me
+a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says
+'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window--but don't
+you tell."
+
+"I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me,
+but I'll meow this time. Say--what's that?"
+
+"Nothing but a tick."
+
+"Where'd you get him?"
+
+"Out in the woods."
+
+"What'll you take for him?"
+
+"I don't know. I don't want to sell him."
+
+"All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway."
+
+"Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't belong to them. I'm
+satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick for me."
+
+"Sho, there's ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of 'em if I
+wanted to."
+
+"Well, why don't you? Becuz you know mighty well you can't. This is a
+pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first one I've seen this year."
+
+"Say, Huck--I'll give you my tooth for him."
+
+"Less see it."
+
+Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry
+viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:
+
+"Is it genuwyne?"
+
+Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.
+
+"Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a trade."
+
+Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been
+the pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier
+than before.
+
+When Tom reached the little isolated frame schoolhouse, he strode in
+briskly, with the manner of one who had come with all honest speed.
+He hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with
+business-like alacrity. The master, throned on high in his great
+splint-bottom arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study.
+The interruption roused him.
+
+"Thomas Sawyer!"
+
+Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in full, it meant trouble.
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?"
+
+Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of
+yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric
+sympathy of love; and by that form was THE ONLY VACANT PLACE on the
+girls' side of the schoolhouse. He instantly said:
+
+"I STOPPED TO TALK WITH HUCKLEBERRY FINN!"
+
+The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of
+study ceased. The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his
+mind. The master said:
+
+"You--you did what?"
+
+"Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn."
+
+There was no mistaking the words.
+
+"Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding confession I have ever
+listened to. No mere ferule will answer for this offence. Take off your
+jacket."
+
+The master's arm performed until it was tired and the stock of
+switches notably diminished. Then the order followed:
+
+"Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let this be a warning to you."
+
+The titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but
+in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe of
+his unknown idol and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good
+fortune. He sat down upon the end of the pine bench and the girl
+hitched herself away from him with a toss of her head. Nudges and winks
+and whispers traversed the room, but Tom sat still, with his arms upon
+the long, low desk before him, and seemed to study his book.
+
+By and by attention ceased from him, and the accustomed school murmur
+rose upon the dull air once more. Presently the boy began to steal
+furtive glances at the girl. She observed it, "made a mouth" at him and
+gave him the back of her head for the space of a minute. When she
+cautiously faced around again, a peach lay before her. She thrust it
+away. Tom gently put it back. She thrust it away again, but with less
+animosity. Tom patiently returned it to its place. Then she let it
+remain. Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it--I got more." The
+girl glanced at the words, but made no sign. Now the boy began to draw
+something on the slate, hiding his work with his left hand. For a time
+the girl refused to notice; but her human curiosity presently began to
+manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs. The boy worked on,
+apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort of noncommittal attempt to
+see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it. At last she
+gave in and hesitatingly whispered:
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable
+ends to it and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney. Then the
+girl's interest began to fasten itself upon the work and she forgot
+everything else. When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then
+whispered:
+
+"It's nice--make a man."
+
+The artist erected a man in the front yard, that resembled a derrick.
+He could have stepped over the house; but the girl was not
+hypercritical; she was satisfied with the monster, and whispered:
+
+"It's a beautiful man--now make me coming along."
+
+Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and
+armed the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said:
+
+"It's ever so nice--I wish I could draw."
+
+"It's easy," whispered Tom, "I'll learn you."
+
+"Oh, will you? When?"
+
+"At noon. Do you go home to dinner?"
+
+"I'll stay if you will."
+
+"Good--that's a whack. What's your name?"
+
+"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
+
+"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me
+Tom, will you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from
+the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom
+said:
+
+"Oh, it ain't anything."
+
+"Yes it is."
+
+"No it ain't. You don't want to see."
+
+"Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me."
+
+"You'll tell."
+
+"No I won't--deed and deed and double deed won't."
+
+"You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?"
+
+"No, I won't ever tell ANYbody. Now let me."
+
+"Oh, YOU don't want to see!"
+
+"Now that you treat me so, I WILL see." And she put her small hand
+upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in
+earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were
+revealed: "I LOVE YOU."
+
+"Oh, you bad thing!" And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened
+and looked pleased, nevertheless.
+
+Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his
+ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that wise he was borne across the
+house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles
+from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few
+awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a
+word. But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.
+
+As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the
+turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the
+reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and
+turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into
+continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and
+got "turned down," by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought
+up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with
+ostentation for months.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his
+ideas wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It
+seemed to him that the noon recess would never come. The air was
+utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of
+sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying
+scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees.
+Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green
+sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the 

<TRUNCATED>

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