x Jjbris
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
Collection of
Children's Books
CHILDREN'S BOOK j|
COLLECTION
*
*
LIBRARY OF THE
IVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA *
LOS ANGELES
THE
ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER.
THE ADVENTURES
OF
TOM SAWYER
BY
MARK TWAIN.
THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY,
HARTFORD, CONN.: CHICAGO, ILL.: CINCINNATI, OHIO.
A. ROMAN & CO., SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
1876.
COPYRIGHT
BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.
1875- .
All Rights Reserved.
To
MY WIFE
THIS BOOK
is
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
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 them-
selves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises
they sometimes engaged in.
THE AUTHOR.
HARTFORD, 1876.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Y-o-u-u Tom Aunt Polly Decides Upon her Duty Tom Practices Music The Challenge
A Private Entrance 17
CHAPTER II.
Strong Temptations Strategic Movements The Innocents Beguiled 26
CHAPTER III.
Tom as a General Triumph and Reward Dismal Felicity Commission and Omission. ... 33
CHAPTER IV.
Mental Acrobatics Attending Sunday-School The Superintendent "Showing off" Tom
Lionized 42
CHAPTER V.
A Useful Minister In Church The Climax 53
CHAPTER VI.
Self -Examination Dentistry The Midnight Charm Witches and Devils Cautious
Approaches Happy Hours 60
CHAPTER VII.
A Treaty Entered Into Early Lessons A Mistake Made 72
CHAPTER VIII.
Tom Decides on his Course Old Scenes Re-enacted 79
CHAPTER IX.
A Solemn Situation Grave Subjects Introduced Injun Joe Explains 85
. CHAPTER X.
The Solemn Oath Terror Brings Repentance Mental Punishment 93
XII CONTENTS,
CHAPTER XI.
Muff Potter Comes Himself Tom's Conscience at Work 101
CHAPTER XII.
Tom Shows his Generosity Aunt Polly Weakens 107
CHAPTER XIII.
The Young Pirates Going to the Rendezvous The Camp-Fire Talk 113
CHAPTER XIV.
Camp-Life A Sensation Tom Steals Away from Camp . 121
CHAPTER XV.
Tom Reconnoiters Learns the Situation Reports at Camp 128
CHAPTER XVI.
A Day's Amusements Tom Reveals a Secret The Pirates take a Lesson A Night Surprise
An Indian War 134
CHAPTER XVII.
Memories of the Lost Heroes The Point in Tom's Secret 144
CHAPTER XVIII.
Tom's Feelings Investigated Wonderful Dream Becky Thatcher Overshadowed Tom
Becomes Jealous Black Revenge ,. 148
CHAPTER XIX.
Tom Tells the Truth 158
CHAPTER XX.
Becky in a Dilemma Tom's Nobility Asserts Itself. 161
CHAPTER XXL
Youthful Eloquence Compositions by the Young Ladies A Lengthy Vision The Boy's
Vengeance Satisfied 167
CHAPTER XXII.
Tom's Confidence Betrayed Expects Signal Punishment 176
CHAPTER XXIII.
Old Muff 's Friends Muff Potter in Court Muff Potter Saved 181
CONTENTS. XIII
CHAPTER XXIV.
Tom as the Village Hero Days of Splendor and Nights of Horror Pursuit of Injun Joe 189
CHAPTER XXV.
About Kings and Diamonds Search for the Treasure Dead People and Ghosts 191
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Haunted House Sleepy Ghosts A Box of Gold Bitter Luck 199
CHAPTER XXVII.
Doubts to be Settled The Young Detectives 208
CHAPTER XXVIII.
An Attempt at No. Two Huck Mounts Guard 212
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Pic-nie Huck on Injun Joe's Track The " Revenge " Job Aid for the Widow 217
CHAPTER XXX.
The Welchman Reports Huck Under Fire The Story Circulated A New Sensation Hope
Giving Way to Despair . 226
CHAPTER XXXI.
An Exploring Expedition Trouble Commences Lost in the Cave Total Darkness Found
but not Saved .'.. 236
CHAPTER XXXII.
Tom tells the Story of their Escape Tom's Enemy in Safe Quarters 247
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Fate of Injun Joe Huck and Tom Compare Notes An Expedition to the Cave Pro-
tection Against Ghosts" An Awful Snug Place" A Reception at the Widow Douglas's, 252
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Springing a Secret Mr. Jones' Surprise a Failure 264
CHAPTER XXXV.
A New Order of Things Poor Huck New Adventures Planned 268
CONCLUSION 275
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Tom Sawyer . . . Frontispiece
PAGE
17
18
19
23
25
26
28
30
32
33
34
35
36
38
39
39
40
4i
42
44
45
47
ST
52
53
54
55
57
58
59
60
63
64
67
69
PAGE
. . 7O
Interrupted Courtship
. 71
Aunt Polly Beguiled ....
A Good Opportunity ....
Tail Piece ....
The Grave in the Woods .
. . 78
. 79
81
'Tendin' to Business
Robin Hood and his Foe .
Death of Robin Hood
Midnight
Tom's Mode of Egress
Tom's Effort at Prayer
Muff Potter Outwitted
The Graveyard
. . 83
. . 84
. . 85
. 86
. 88
. 91
. 92
Q-5
Becky Thatcher
After the Battle .....
Mary
Disturbing Muff's Sleep .
Tom's Talk with his Aunt
Muff Potter ....
A Suspicious Incident
Injun Joe's two Victims .
In the Coils ....
Peter
Aunt Polly seeks Information .
A General Good Time
Demoralized ....
. . 9 8
. TOO
. IOI
. IO2
. 103
. 106
. 107
. 108
. . no
. 112
Tom Contemplating ....
Boyhood
Using the " Barlow " ....
Tom as a Sunday-School Hero
The Model Boy
On Board Their First Prize
The Pirates Ashore . .
. II?
. 118
The Church Choir
A Side Show
Wild Life .....
The Pirate's Bath
. 121
121
Result of Playing in Church .
The Pinch-Bug
Sid
Dentistry
The Pleasant Stroll
. .124
The Search for the Drowned .
The Mysterious Writing .
River View
. 125
. 127
128
Mother Hopkins
Result of Tom's Truthfulness .
What Tom Saw
. . I3O
Tom Swims the River
133
XVI
ILL USTRA TIONS.
PAGE
Taking Lessons 134
The Pirates' Egg Market . . . .135
Tom Looking for Joe's Knife . . . 139
The Thunder Storm . . . .141
Terrible Slaughter 143
The Mourner . . . . . . 144
Tom's Proudest Moment . . . .147
Amy Lawrence 148
Tom tries to Remember . . . .150
The Hero 152
A Flirtation 154
Becky Retaliates 155
A Sudden Frost 156
Counter-irritation 157
Aunt Polly . . . . . .158
Tom Justified ...... 160
The Discovery i6i
Caught in the Act 163
Tom Astonishes the School . . . 165
Literature 166
Tom Declaims . . . . . 167
Examination Evening .... 168
On Exhibition 170
Prize Authors . . . . . . 173
The Master's Dilemma .... 174
The School House 175
The Cadet '.176
Happy for Two Days .... 177
Enjoying the Vacation .... 178
The Stolen Melons ..... 180
The Judge 181
Visiting the Prisoner . . . .184
Tom Swears . . . . . .186
The Court Room 188
The Detective 189
Tom Dreams ...... 190
The Treasure ...... 191
The Private Conference .... 192
A King ; Poor Fellow ! 194
Business ....... 195
The Ha'nted House 198
Injun Joe igg
The Greatest and Best . . . .200
Hidden Treasures Unearthed . . . 205
The Boy's Salvation .
Room No. 2 ...
The Next Day's Conference
Treasures
Uncle Jake
Huck at Home
The Haunted Room
" Run for Your Life "
McDougal's Cave .
Inside the Cave
PAGE
. 207
. 208
. 209
. 211
. 212
. 213
. 214
. 216
. 217
. 220
Huck on Duty 221
A Rousing Act 224.
Tail Piece 225
The Welchman ..... 226
Result of a Sneeze 227
Cornered 229
Alarming Discoveries .... 232
Tom and Becky stir up the Town . . 233
Tom's Marks 234
Huck Questions the Widow . . . 235
Vampires ....... 236
Wonders of the Cave .... 237
Attacked by Natives . . . .238
Despair 240
The Wedding Cake 242
A New Terror 245
Daylight 247
" Turn Out " to Receive Tom and Becky 248
The Escape from the Cave . . . 249
Fate of the Ragged Man . . . .251
The Treasures Found .... 252
Caught at Last 253
Drop after Drop 254
Having a Good Time .... 255
A Business Trip 257
"Got it at Last !" 261
Tail Piece 263
Widow Douglas 264
Tom Backs his Statement . . .266
Tail Piece 267
Huck Transformed 268
Comfortable Once More . . . .271
High up in Society 273
Contentment 274
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:
i8
TOM SA WYER
"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 dis-
tance, 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? "
"/don't know, aunt."
" Well, / know. It's jam that's what it is.
Forty times I've said if you didn't let tljat 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
AUNT POLLY BEGUILED. 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
A UNT POLL Y DECIDES UPON HER DUTY.
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, / 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 I'll just be obleeged to make him
work, tomorrow, 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 ruina-
tion 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 sup-
per 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
A GOOD OPPORTUNITY.
ways.
While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered,
* South-western for "afternoon."
TOM SAWYER.
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."
TOM PRACTICES MUSIC. 21
" 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
lappels 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 / 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 practice 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 astron-
omer 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. Petersburgh. 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
TOM SAWYER.
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."
"lean."
" 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 willy 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."
THE CHALLENGE.
" 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 eyeing and sid-
ling around each other. Presently they
were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said :
" Get away from here ! "
"Go away yourself! "
"I won't."
"/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
WHO'S AFRAID ? 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."
" \Vhat 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."
24 TOM SAWYER.
" 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 noses, 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 corne 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.
A PRIVATE ENTRANCE.
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.
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.
26
STJfONG TEMPTATIONS. 27
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 dis-
couraged. 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, quarreling, fighting,- skylark-
ing. 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 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."
u 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, / 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
28
TOM SAWYER.
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
TENDIN' TO BUSINESS.
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 straightened 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
S7^RA TEGIC MO YEMEN TS. 29
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 side-walk.
" 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-ling-ling ! . Chow-ch-chow-chow ! "
The left hand began to describe circles.
" Stop the stabboard ! Ting-a-ling-ling ! Stop the labbord ! 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! Stit! s'A'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-jy// 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 :
TOM SA WYER.
" Why it's you Ben ! I warn't noticing."
"Say /'m going in a swimming, / 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 aint.
All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer."
"Oh come, now, you don't mean to
let on that you like it ? "
The brusji continued to move.
"Like it? Wei) 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 criti-
' AIN'T THAT WORK? cised the effect aga i n _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.
THE INNOCENTS BEGUILED. 31
"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 barrej. iri the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his
apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of mate-
rial ; 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 beside
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 door-knob, a dog-collar but
no dog the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old
window-sash.
TOM SAWYER.
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 dis-
covered 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 climb-
| ing 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 sum-
mer, because the privilege costs them con-
siderable money; but if they were offered
wages for the service, that would turn it into
work and then they would resign.
AMUSEMENT.
The boy mused a while over the substantial change which had taken place in
his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward head-quarters to report.
m.
again in this intrepid way. He said :
"What, a'ready? How much have you done?"
3 33
presented himself before Aunt
Polly, who was. sitting by an open
window in a pleasant rearward apart-
ment, which was bed-room, breakfast-
room, dining-room, and library, com-
bined. 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 specta-
cles were propped up on her gray
head for safety. She had thought
that of course Tom had deserted
long ago, and she wondered at see-
ing him place himself in her power
'Mayn't I go and play now, aunt?''
34
TOM SAWYER.
" 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 your'e 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 sometime 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 with-
out 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
PAVING OFF. 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 AS A GENERAL.
35
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 hasted 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
AFTER THE BATTLE.
"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
TOM SA WYER.
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 hap-
piest 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 worshiped this new angel with fur-
tive 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 a while 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 dis-
covered 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
' SHOWING OFF.
TRIUMPH A ND RE WA RD. 3 7
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 minutexonly 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 him-
self a little with the hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and
been aware of his attentions. Finally he rode 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 well-nigh
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 brim-full 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 :
TOM SA WYER.
"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."
^ ^v^^^^ vv - Then her conscience reproached
I ^v^" : -xNs\V i^\ ' 11111^1^ >;> ner > an d she yearned to say some-
\v^^ ^>^ : iSI^^^^^^^ thing kind and loving; but she
i ?./- -.':;.:. -^ '-; ,. ; ^^xx^%, ' : '- judged that this would be con-
strued into a confession that she
had been in the wrong, and disci-
pline 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 con-
sciousness 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 swallow-
ing, 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
DISMAL FELICITY.
39
it ; it was too sacred for such con-
tact; 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 .accus-
tomed 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 him-
self on its outer edge and contem-
plated the dreary vastness of the
stream, wishing, the while, that he could
only be drowned, all at once and uncon-
sciously, without undergoing the uncom-
fortable routine devised by nature. Then
he thought of his flower. He got it out,
rumpled and wilted, and it mightily in-
creased 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 com-
fort him? Or would she turn coldly away
like all the hollow world ? This picture
brought such an agony of pleasureable
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,
departed in the darkness.
At last he rose up sighing and
AC
TOM SA WYRR.
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
_^ i relieving snort. There was a whiz as
of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound as of
COMMISSION AND OMISSION.
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.
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 wilh a prayer built from the
ground up of solid courses of Scrip-
tural 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 ener-
gies 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.
42
MENTAL ACROBATICS. 43,
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."
" Youbet'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 bran-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
44
TOM SA WYEK.
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 dili-
gently 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 down-
ward 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
USING THE "BARLOW."
A TTENDING SUNDA Y-SCHOOL.
45
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 uncom-
fortable as he looked ; for there was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanli-
ness 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 every-
thing 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 ser-
vice. Two of 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 ? "
THE CHURCH. " What'll you give ? "
" Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook."
" Less see 'em."
46 TOM SAWYER.
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 Superintendant 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 occa-
sions, 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.
THE SUPERINTENDENT.
47
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 com-
manded 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
NECESSITIES.
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 wrjole body when a side view was require.d ;
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
48 TOM SAWYER.
'produced by the young men by sitting with their toes pressed against a wall for
hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest of mein, 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 sub-
sidence 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
SHO WING OFF." 49
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 Con-
stantinople, twelve miles away so he had traveled, 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 dili-
gence 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 " show-
ing off," too. 4
50 TOM SAWYER.
There was only one thing wanting, to make Mr. Walters' ecstacy 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 head-quarters. 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
f ace b u t 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
TOM LIONIZED.
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 boy-
hood 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 AS A SUNDAY-SCHOOL HERO.
5 2
TOM SAWYER.
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.
who
there
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 chil-
dren 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 out-
side summer scenes as possible.
The crowd filed up the aisles:
the aged and needy postmaster,
had seen better days; the mayor and his wife for they had a mayor
, among other unnecessaries ; the justice of the peace; the widow
53
54
TOM SAWYER.
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
Jast girl had run their gauntlet; 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 lag-
gards 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,
THE MOUKL BOY.
A USEFUL MINISTER.
55
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 bed*
of ease,
Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' blood-
-y seas?
He was regarded as a wonderful reader. At church "sociables" he was
THE CHCTRCH CHOIR.
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.
56 TO M SA WYER.
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 Govern-
ment; 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
IN CHURCH.
57
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 conspicu-
ousness of the principal character before the on-looking nations; his face
lit with the thought, and he said to him-
self 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. Pres-
ently he bethought him of a treasure
he had and got it out. It was a large
black beetle with formidable jaws a
" pinch-bug," 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 work-
ing its helpless legs, unable to turn over.
Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was
safe out of his reach. Other people un-
interested in the sermon, found relief in
A SIDE SHOW.
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
TOM SAWYER.
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 handker-
chiefs, 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 crea-
ture, 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 poo-
dle 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
RESULT OF PLAYING IN CHURCH.
THE CLIMAX. 59)
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 stand-still. The discourse was
resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all possibility of impressive-
ness 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 pinch-bug, but he did not think it was upright in him to carry it off.
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 wish-
ing he had had no intervening holiday,
it made the going into captivity and
fetters again so much more odious.
Tom lay thinking. Presently it oc-
curred 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.
* r i'/7Tir*" v 77 '^*J4^ H_Z_
\ u^>MLx>^5^i/A 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.
60
SELF-EXAMINATION. 61
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 too-k 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 :
"O don't, Sid. Don't joggle me."
"Why what's the matter Tom? I must call auntie."
"No nevermind. 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 ! O don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me."
" Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? O, 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 "
62 TOM SAWYER.
" O, Tom, you ain't dying are you ? Don't, Tom O, 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 :
" O, 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 ? "
"O, auntie, I'm "
"What's the matter with you what is the matter with you, child ? "
" O 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 :
DENTISTRY.
" O, 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. / 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 bed-post.
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 fol-
lowing of lads interested in the exhibition;
and one that had cut his finger and had DENTISTRY.
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 dis-
mantled 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
6 4
TOM SAWYER.
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 door-steps 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.
Petersburgh.
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 ? "
HUCKLEBERRY
THE MIDNIGHT CHARM. 65
"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 day time ? "
"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 your-
self, 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."
5
66 TOM SAWYER.
"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 warls. 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 cross-roads 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 Jo
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 some-
thing 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, /'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 offn 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."
WITCHES AND DEVILS.
" 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 back-ards." , L .
" 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 '11 you take for him? "
"I don't know. I don't want to sell him."
" All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway."
" O, 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."
MOTHER HOPKINS.
68 TOM SAW YE 'R.
" 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 aud 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 pinch-
bug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before.
When Tom reached the little isolated frame School-house, 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 girl's side of the school-house. He
instantly said :
" I STOPPED TO TALK WITH HUCKLEBERRY FlNN ! "
The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of study
ceased. The pupils wondered if this fool-hardy boy had lost .his mind. The
master said :
" You you did what ? "
" Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn."
There was no mistaking the words.
CA UTIOUS APPROACHES.
69
" 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 ani-
mosity. 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 unconcious. The girl made a sort of non-com-
mittal attempt to see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it. At last
she gave in and hesitatingly whispered :
RESULT OF TOM'S TRUTHFULNESS.
7 o
TOM SA WYER.
" Let me see it."
Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable ends to it
and a cork-screw 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 por-
tentous fan. The girl said :
" It's ever so nice I wish I
could draw."
" It's easy," whispered Tom,
"I'll learn you."
" O, will you ? When ? "
" At noon. Do you go home
to dinner ? "
" I'll stay if you will."
" Good, that's a . whack.
TOM AS AN ARTIST. 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."
HAPPY HOURS.
" Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me."
"You'll tell."
" No I won't deed and deed and double deed I 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 pretend-
ing to resist in earnest but letting his
hand slip by degrees till these words
were revealed : " / love you. "
" O, 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 vise 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 al-
though 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 moun-
tains, 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.
INTERRUPTED COURTSHIP.
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 purple of distance;
a fe w birds floated on lazy wing high
in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were
asleep. Tom's heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest
A TREATY ENTERED INTO. 73
to do to pass the dreary time. His hand wandered into his pocket and his face
lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it.
Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put
him on the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed with a gratitude that
amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it was premature : for when he
started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned him aside with a pin and made him
take a new direction.
Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and now
he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an instant.
This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn friends all the
week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a pin out of his lappel
and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew in interest
momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and
neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick. So he put Joe's slate on the
desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to bottom.
" Now," said he, " as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and I'll
let him alone; but if you let him get away and get on my side, you're to leave
him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over."
" All right, go ahead ; start him up."
The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe harassed
him 'a while, and then he got away and crossed back again. This change of
base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with absorbing
interest, the other would look on with interest as strong, the two heads bowed
together over the slate,- and the two souls dead to all things else. At last luck
seemed to settle and abide with Joe. The tick tried this, that, and the other
course, and got as excited and as anxious as the boys themselves, but time and
again just as he would have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom's
fingers would be twitching to begin, Joe's pin would deftly head him off, and
keep possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was
too strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry
in a moment. Said he:
" Tom, you let him alone."
74 T0!\f SAWYER.
11 1 only just want to stir him up a little, Joe."
" No, sir, , it ain't fair; you just let him alone."
"Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much."
" Let him alone, I tell you ! "
*' I won't ! "
" You shall he's on my side of the line."
" Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick ? "
"/don't care whose tick he is he's on my side of the line, and you shan't
touch him."
" Well I'll just bet I will, though. H*e's my tick and I'll do what I blame
please with him, or die ! "
A tremendous whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on
Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from the two
jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been too absorbed to
notice the hush that had stolen upon the school a while before when the master
came tip-toeing down the room and stood over them. He had contemplated a
good part of the performance before he contributed his bit of variety to it.
When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and whispered
in her ear:
" Put on your bonnet and let on you're going home ; and when you get to
the corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the lane and
come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same way."
So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with another.
In a h. le while the two met at the bottom of the lane, and when they reached
the schoox >ey had it all to themselves. Then they sat together, with a slate
before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil and held her hand in his, guiding
it, and so created another surprising house. When the interest in art began to
wane, the two fell to talking. Tom was swimming in bliss. He said:
"Do you love rats?"
" No ! I hate them ! "
" Well, I do too live ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your head
with a string."
EARL Y LESSONS. 75
" No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What / like is chewing-gum."
" O, I should say so ! I wish I had some now."
" Do you ? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give it
back to me."
That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their legs
against the bench in excess of contentment.
tl Was you ever at a circus ? " said Tom.
" Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good."
" I been to the circus three or four times lots of times. Church ain't shucks
to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time. I'm going to be
a clown in a circus when I grow up."
" O, are you ! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up."
" Yes, that's so. And they get slathers of money most a dollar a day, Ben
Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged ? "
" What's that ? "
"Why, engaged to be married."
"No."
"Would you like to?"
" I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like ? "
"Like?" Why it ain't like anything. You only just telf a boy you wont
ever have any body but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's alL
Anybody can do it."
" Kiss ? What do you kiss for ? "
"Why that, you know, is to well, they always do that/ 51
" Everybody ? "
"Why yes, everybody that's in love with each other. Do you remember
what I wrote on the slate ? "
Ye yes."
" What was it ? "
" I shant tell you."
"Shall I tellj^K?"
" Ye yes but some other time."
7 6 TOM SAWYER.
" No, now."
"No, not now to-morrow."
" O, no, now. Please Becky I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so easy."
Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm about
her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth close to her ear.
And then he added :
" Now you whisper it to me just the same."
She resisted, for a while, and then said :
" You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will. But you mustn't
ever tell anybody will you, Tom ? Now you won't, will you ? "
" No, indeed indeed I won't. Now Becky."
He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath stirred his
curls and whispered, " I love you ! "
Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches,
with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little white
apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded :
" Now Becky, it's all done all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid of that
it aint anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her apron and
the hands.
By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop ; her face, all glowing with
-the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and said :
" Now it's all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't ever
to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but me, never
never and forever. Will you ? "
" No, I'll never lore anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody
but you and.you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."
" Certainly. Of course. That's part of it. And always coming to school
or when we're going home, you're to walk jvith me, when there ain't anybody
looking and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that's the
way you do when you're engaged."
" It's so nice. I never heard of it before."
" Oh its ever so gay ! Why me and Amy Lawrence " >
A MISTAKE MADE.
77
The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
" O, Tom ! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to ! "
The child began to cry. Tom said :
" O don't cry, Becky, I don
