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THE ADVENTURES OF
TOM SAWYER

BY

MARK TWAIN

(Samuel Langhorne
Clemens)

P R E F A C E

MOST of the adventures recorded in this book
really occurred; one or

two were experiences of my own, the rest
those of boys who were

schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from
life; Tom Sawyer also, but

not from an individual--he is a combination
of the characteristics of

three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs
to the composite order of

architecture.

The odd superstitions touched upon were all
prevalent among children

and slaves in the West at the period of this
story--that is to say,

thirty or forty years ago.

Although my book is intended mainly for the
entertainment of boys and

girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men
and women on that account,

for part of my plan has been to try to
pleasantly remind adults of what

they once were themselves, and of how they
felt and thought and talked,

and what queer enterprises they sometimes
engaged in.

THE AUTHOR.

HARTFORD, 1876.

T O M   S A W Y E R

CHAPTER I

"TOM!"

No answer.

"TOM!"

No answer.

"What's gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!"

No answer.

The old lady pulled her spectacles down and
looked over them about the

room; then she put them up and looked out
under them. She seldom or

never looked THROUGH them for so small a
thing as a boy; they were her

state pair, the pride of her heart, and were
built for "style," not

service--she could have seen through a pair
of stove-lids just as well.

She looked perplexed for a moment, and then
said, not fiercely, but

still loud enough for the furniture to
hear:

"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--"

She did not finish, for by this time she was
bending down and punching

under the bed with the broom, and so she
needed breath to punctuate the

punches with. She resurrected nothing but the
cat.

"I never did see the beat of that boy!"

She went to the open door and stood in it and
looked out among the

tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that
constituted the garden. No Tom.

So she lifted up her voice at an angle
calculated for distance and

shouted:

"Y-o-u-u TOM!"

There was a slight noise behind her and she
turned just in time to

seize a small boy by the slack of his
roundabout and arrest his flight.

"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet.
What you been doing in

there?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your
mouth. What IS that

truck?"

"I don't know, aunt."

"Well, I know. It's jam--that's what it is.
Forty times I've said if

you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you.
Hand me that switch."

The switch hovered in the air--the peril was
desperate--

"My! Look behind you, aunt!"

The old lady whirled round, and snatched her
skirts out of danger. The

lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the
high board-fence, and

disappeared over it.

His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and
then broke into a gentle

laugh.

"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything?
Ain't he played me tricks

enough like that for me to be looking out for
him by this time? But old

fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't
learn an old dog new tricks,

as the saying is. But my goodness, he never
plays them alike, two days,

and how is a body to know what's coming? He
'pears to know just how

long he can torment me before I get my dander
up, and he knows if he

can make out to put me off for a minute or
make me laugh, it's all down

again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't
doing my duty by that boy,

and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows.
Spare the rod and spile

the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a
laying up sin and suffering for

us both, I know. He's full of the Old
Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my

own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I
ain't got the heart to lash

him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my
conscience does hurt me so,

and every time I hit him my old heart most
breaks. Well-a-well, man

that is born of woman is of few days and full
of trouble, as the

Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll
play hookey this evening, *

and [* Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll
just be obleeged to make him

work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty
hard to make him work

Saturdays, when all the boys is having
holiday, but he hates work more

than he hates anything else, and I've GOT to
do some of my duty by him,

or I'll be the ruination of the child."

Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good
time. He got back home

barely in season to help Jim, the small
colored boy, saw next-day's

wood and split the kindlings before
supper--at least he was there in

time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim
did three-fourths of the

work. Tom's younger brother (or rather
half-brother) Sid was already

through with his part of the work (picking up
chips), for he was a

quiet boy, and had no adventurous,
troublesome ways.

While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing
sugar as opportunity

offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that
were full of guile, and

very deep--for she wanted to trap him into
damaging revealments. Like

many other simple-hearted souls, it was her
pet vanity to believe she

was endowed with a talent for dark and
mysterious diplomacy, and she

loved to contemplate her most transparent
devices as marvels of low

cunning. Said she:

"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't
it?"

"Yes'm."

"Powerful warm, warn't it?"

"Yes'm."

"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"

A bit of a scare shot through Tom--a touch of
uncomfortable suspicion.

He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told
him nothing. So he said:

"No'm--well, not very much."

The old lady reached out her hand and felt
Tom's shirt, and said:

"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it
flattered her to reflect

that she had discovered that the shirt was
dry without anybody knowing

that that was what she had in her mind. But
in spite of her, Tom knew

where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled
what might be the next move:

"Some of us pumped on our heads--mine's damp
yet. See?"

Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had
overlooked that bit of

circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick.
Then she had a new

inspiration:

"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt
collar where I sewed it, to

pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your
jacket!"

The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He
opened his jacket. His

shirt collar was securely sewed.

"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made
sure you'd played hookey

and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I
reckon you're a kind of a

singed cat, as the saying is--better'n you
look. THIS time."

She was half sorry her sagacity had
miscarried, and half glad that Tom

had stumbled into obedient conduct for
once.

But Sidney said:

"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his
collar with white thread,

but it's black."

"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!"

But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went
out at the door he said:

"Siddy, I'll lick you for that."

In a safe place Tom examined two large
needles which were thrust into

the lapels of his jacket, and had thread
bound about them--one needle

carried white thread and the other black. He
said:

"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for
Sid. Confound it! sometimes

she sews it with white, and sometimes she
sews it with black. I wish to

geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other--I
can't keep the run of 'em. But

I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn
him!"

He was not the Model Boy of the village. He
knew the model boy very

well though--and loathed him.

Within two minutes, or even less, he had
forgotten all his troubles.

Not because his troubles were one whit less
heavy and bitter to him

than a man's are to a man, but because a new
and powerful interest bore

them down and drove them out of his mind for
the time--just as men's

misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement
of new enterprises. This

new interest was a valued novelty in
whistling, which he had just

acquired from a negro, and he was suffering
to practise it undisturbed.

It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a
sort of liquid warble,

produced by touching the tongue to the roof
of the mouth at short

intervals in the midst of the music--the
reader probably remembers how

to do it, if he has ever been a boy.
Diligence and attention soon gave

him the knack of it, and he strode down the
street with his mouth full

of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He
felt much as an

astronomer feels who has discovered a new
planet--no doubt, as far as

strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is
concerned, the advantage was with

the boy, not the astronomer.

The summer evenings were long. It was not
dark, yet. Presently Tom

checked his whistle. A stranger was before
him--a boy a shade larger

than himself. A new-comer of any age or
either sex was an impressive

curiosity in the poor little shabby
village of
St. Petersburg. This
boy

was well dressed, too--well dressed on a
week-day. This was simply

astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his
close-buttoned blue cloth

roundabout was new and natty, and so were his
pantaloons. He had shoes

on--and it was only Friday. He even wore a
necktie, a bright bit of

ribbon. He had a citified air about him that
ate into Tom's vitals. The

more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the
higher he turned up his

nose at his finery and the shabbier and
shabbier his own outfit seemed

to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one
moved, the other moved--but

only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to
face and eye to eye all

the time. Finally Tom said:

"I can lick you!"

"I'd like to see you try it."

"Well, I can do it."

"No you can't, either."

"Yes I can."

"No you can't."

"I can."

"You can't."

"Can!"

"Can't!"

An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:

"What's your name?"

"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe."

"Well I 'low I'll MAKE it my business."

"Well why don't you?"

"If you say much, I will."

"Much--much--MUCH. There now."

"Oh, you think you're mighty smart, DON'T you?
I could lick you with

one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to."

"Well why don't you DO it? You SAY you can do
it."

"Well I WILL, if you fool with me."

"Oh yes--I've seen whole families in the same
fix."

"Smarty! You think you're SOME, now, DON'T
you? Oh, what a hat!"

"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I
dare you to knock it

off--and anybody that'll take a dare will
suck eggs."

"You're a liar!"

"You're another."

"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it
up."

"Aw--take a walk!"

"Say--if you give me much more of your sass
I'll take and bounce a

rock off'n your head."

"Oh, of COURSE you will."

"Well I WILL."

"Well why don't you DO it then? What do you
keep SAYING you will for?

Why don't you DO it? It's because you're
afraid."

"I AIN'T afraid."

"You are."

"I ain't."

"You are."

Another pause, and more eying and sidling
around each other. Presently

they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:

"Get away from here!"

"Go away yourself!"

"I won't."

"I won't either."

So they stood, each with a foot placed at an
angle as a brace, and

both shoving with might and main, and
glowering at each other with

hate. But neither could get an advantage.
After struggling till both

were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain
with watchful caution,

and Tom said:

"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big
brother on you, and he

can thrash you with his little finger, and
I'll make him do it, too."

"What do I care for your big brother? I've got
a brother that's bigger

than he is--and what's more, he can throw him
over that fence, too."

[Both brothers were imaginary.]

"That's a lie."

"YOUR saying so don't make it so."

Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe,
and said:

"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick
you till you can't stand

up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal
sheep."

The new boy stepped over promptly, and
said:

"Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you
do it."

"Don't you crowd me now; you better look
out."

"Well, you SAID you'd do it--why don't you do
it?"

"By jingo! for two cents I WILL do it."

The new boy took two broad coppers out of his
pocket and held them out

with derision. Tom struck them to the ground.
In an instant both boys

were rolling and tumbling in the dirt,
gripped together like cats; and

for the space of a minute they tugged and
tore at each other's hair and

clothes, punched and scratched each other's
nose, and covered

themselves with dust and glory. Presently the
confusion took form, and

through the fog of battle Tom appeared,
seated astride the new boy, and

pounding him with his fists. "Holler 'nuff!"
said he.

The boy only struggled to free himself. He
was crying--mainly from rage.

"Holler 'nuff!"--and the pounding went on.

At last the stranger got out a smothered
"'Nuff!" and Tom let him up

and said:

"Now that'll learn you. Better look out who
you're fooling with next

time."

The new boy went off brushing the dust from
his clothes, sobbing,

snuffling, and occasionally looking back and
shaking his head and

threatening what he would do to Tom the "next
time he caught him out."

To which Tom responded with jeers, and
started off in high feather, and

as soon as his back was turned the new boy
snatched up a stone, threw

it and hit him between the shoulders and then
turned tail and ran like

an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and
thus found out where he

lived. He then held a position at the gate
for some time, daring the

enemy to come outside, but the enemy only
made faces at him through the

window and declined. At last the enemy's
mother appeared, and called

Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered
him away. So he went

away; but he said he "'lowed" to "lay" for
that boy.

He got home pretty late that night, and when
he climbed cautiously in

at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in
the person of his aunt;

and when she saw the state his clothes were
in her resolution to turn

his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard
labor became adamantine in

its firmness.

CHAPTER II

SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer
world was bright and

fresh, and brimming with life. There was a
song in every heart; and if

the heart was young the music issued at the
lips. There was cheer in

every face and a spring in every step. The
locust-trees were in bloom

and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the
air. Cardiff
Hill, beyond

the village and above it, was green with
vegetation and it lay just far

enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of
whitewash and a long-

handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all
gladness left him and a

deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit.
Thirty yards of board

fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed
hollow, and existence but a

burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and
passed it along the topmost

plank; repeated the operation; did it again;
compared the insignificant

whitewashed streak with the far-reaching
continent of unwhitewashed

fence, and sat down on a tree-box
discouraged. Jim came skipping out at

the gate with a tin pail, and singing
Buffalo Gals.
Bringing water from

the town pump had always been hateful work in
Tom's eyes, before, but

now it did not strike him so. He remembered
that there was company at

the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and
girls were always there

waiting their turns, resting, trading
playthings, quarrelling,

fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that
although the pump was only

a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got
back with a bucket of

water under an hour--and even then somebody
generally had to go after

him. Tom said:

"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll
whitewash some."

Jim shook his head and said:

"Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I
got to go an' git dis

water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody.
She say she spec' Mars

Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she
tole me go 'long an' 'tend

to my own business--she 'lowed SHE'D 'tend to
de whitewashin'."

"Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's
the way she always

talks. Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only
a a minute. SHE won't

ever know."

"Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take
an' tar de head off'n

me. 'Deed she would."

"SHE! She never licks anybody--whacks 'em over
the head with her

thimble--and who cares for that, I'd like to
know. She talks awful, but

talk don't hurt--anyways it don't if she
don't cry. Jim, I'll give you

a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!"

Jim began to waver.

"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw."

"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you!
But Mars Tom I's powerful

'fraid ole missis--"

"And besides, if you will I'll show you my
sore toe."

Jim was only human--this attraction was too
much for him. He put down

his pail, took the white alley, and bent over
the toe with absorbing

interest while the bandage was being unwound.
In another moment he was

flying down the street with his pail and a
tingling rear, Tom was

whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was
retiring from the field

with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her
eye.

But Tom's energy did not last. He began to
think of the fun he had

planned for this day, and his sorrows
multiplied. Soon the free boys

would come tripping along on all sorts of
delicious expeditions, and

they would make a world of fun of him for
having to work--the very

thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out
his worldly wealth and

examined it--bits of toys, marbles, and
trash; enough to buy an

exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough
to buy so much as half an

hour of pure freedom. So he returned his
straitened means to his

pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy
the boys. At this dark

and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon
him! Nothing less than a

great, magnificent inspiration.

He took up his brush and went tranquilly to
work. Ben Rogers hove in

sight presently--the very boy, of all boys,
whose ridicule he had been

dreading. Ben's gait was the
hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that his

heart was light and his anticipations high.
He was eating an apple, and

giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals,
followed by a deep-toned

ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was
personating a steamboat. As

he drew near, he slackened speed, took the
middle of the street, leaned

far over to starboard and rounded to
ponderously and with laborious

pomp and circumstance--for he was personating
the Big Missouri, and

considered himself to be drawing nine feet of
water. He was boat and

captain and engine-bells combined, so he had
to imagine himself

standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the
orders and executing them:

"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway
ran almost out, and he

drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms
straightened and

stiffened down his sides.

"Set her back on the stabboard!
Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow!

Chow!" His right hand, meantime, describing
stately circles--for it was

representing a forty-foot wheel.

"Let her go back on the labboard!
Ting-a-lingling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!"

The left hand began to describe circles.

"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop
the labboard! Come ahead

on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside
turn over slow! Ting-a-

ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that
head-line! LIVELY now! Come--out

with your spring-line--what're you about
there! Take a turn round that

stump with the bight of it! Stand by that
stage, now--let her go! Done

with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!
SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!" (trying

the gauge-cocks).

Tom went on whitewashing--paid no attention
to the steamboat. Ben

stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE
up a stump, ain't you!"

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with
the eye of an artist, then

he gave his brush another gentle sweep and
surveyed the result, as

before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's
mouth watered for the

apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben
said:

"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."

"Say--I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you
wish you could? But of

course you'd druther WORK--wouldn't you?
Course you would!"

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:

"What do you call work?"

"Why, ain't THAT work?"

Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered
carelessly:

"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I
know, is, it suits Tom

Sawyer."

"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that
you LIKE it?"

The brush continued to move.

"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to
like it. Does a boy get

a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"

That put the thing in a new light. Ben
stopped nibbling his apple. Tom

swept his brush daintily back and
forth--stepped back to note the

effect--added a touch here and
there--criticised the effect again--Ben

watching every move and getting more and more
interested, more and more

absorbed. Presently he said:

"Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little."

Tom considered, was about to consent; but he
altered his mind:

"No--no--I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben.
You see, Aunt Polly's

awful particular about this fence--right here
on the street, you know--

but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind
and SHE wouldn't. Yes,

she's awful particular about this fence; it's
got to be done very

careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a
thousand, maybe two

thousand, that can do it the way it's got to
be done."

"No--is that so? Oh come, now--lemme just try.
Only just a little--I'd

let YOU, if you was me, Tom."

"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt
Polly--well, Jim wanted to

do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted
to do it, and she wouldn't

let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If
you was to tackle this

fence and anything was to happen to it--"

"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now
lemme try. Say--I'll give

you the core of my apple."

"Well, here--No, Ben, now don't. I'm
afeard--"

"I'll give you ALL of it!"

Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his
face, but alacrity in his

heart. And while the late steamer Big
Missouri
worked and sweated in

the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel
in the shade close by,

dangled his legs, munched his apple, and
planned the slaughter of more

innocents. There was no lack of material;
boys happened along every

little while; they came to jeer, but remained
to whitewash. By the time

Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next
chance to Billy Fisher for

a kite, in good repair; and when he played
out, Johnny Miller bought in

for a dead rat and a string to swing it
with--and so on, and so on,

hour after hour. And when the middle of the
afternoon came, from being

a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning,
Tom was literally rolling

in wealth. He had besides the things before
mentioned, twelve marbles,

part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue
bottle-glass to look through, a

spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock
anything, a fragment of chalk,

a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier,
a couple of tadpoles, six

fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a
brass doorknob, a dog-

collar--but no dog--the handle of a knife,
four pieces of orange-peel,

and a dilapidated old window sash.

He had had a nice, good, idle time all the
while--plenty of company--

and the fence had three coats of whitewash on
it! If he hadn't run out

of whitewash he would have bankrupted every
boy in the village.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a
hollow world, after all. He

had discovered a great law of human action,
without knowing it--namely,

that in order to make a man or a boy covet a
thing, it is only

necessary to make the thing difficult to
attain. If he had been a great

and wise philosopher, like the writer of this
book, he would now have

comprehended that Work consists of whatever a
body is OBLIGED to do,

and that Play consists of whatever a body is
not obliged to do. And

this would help him to understand why
constructing artificial flowers

or performing on a tread-mill is work, while
rolling ten-pins or

climbing Mont
Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in

England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches
twenty or thirty miles

on a daily line, in the summer, because the
privilege costs them

considerable money; but if they were offered
wages for the service,

that would turn it into work and then they
would resign.

The boy mused awhile over the substantial
change which had taken place

in his worldly circumstances, and then wended
toward headquarters to

report.

CHAPTER III

TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who
was sitting by an open

window in a pleasant rearward apartment,
which was bedroom, breakfast-

room, dining-room, and library, combined. The
balmy summer air, the

restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and
the drowsing murmur of the

bees had had their effect, and she was
nodding over her knitting--for

she had no company but the cat, and it was
asleep in her lap. Her

spectacles were propped up on her gray head
for safety. She had thought

that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and
she wondered at seeing

him place himself in her power again in this
intrepid way. He said:

"Mayn't I go and play now, aunt?"

"What, a'ready? How much have you done?"

"It's all done, aunt."

"Tom, don't lie to me--I can't bear it."

"I ain't, aunt; it IS all done."

Aunt Polly placed small trust in such
evidence. She went out to see

for herself; and she would have been content
to find twenty per cent.

of Tom's statement true. When she found the
entire fence whitewashed,

and not only whitewashed but elaborately
coated and recoated, and even

a streak added to the ground, her
astonishment was almost unspeakable.

She said:

"Well, I never! There's no getting round it,
you can work when you're

a mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the
compliment by adding, "But

it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm
bound to say. Well, go 'long

and play; but mind you get back some time in
a week, or I'll tan you."

She was so overcome by the splendor of his
achievement that she took

him into the closet and selected a choice
apple and delivered it to

him, along with an improving lecture upon the
added value and flavor a

treat took to itself when it came without sin
through virtuous effort.

And while she closed with a happy Scriptural
flourish, he "hooked" a

doughnut.

Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just
starting up the outside stairway

that led to the back rooms on the second
floor. Clods were handy and

the air was full of them in a twinkling. They
raged around Sid like a

hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could
collect her surprised faculties

and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods
had taken personal effect,

and Tom was over the fence and gone. There
was a gate, but as a general

thing he was too crowded for time to make use
of it. His soul was at

peace, now that he had settled with Sid for
calling attention to his

black thread and getting him into
trouble.

Tom skirted the block, and came round into a
muddy alley that led by

the back of his aunt's cow-stable. He
presently got safely beyond the

reach of capture and punishment, and hastened
toward the public square

of the village, where two "military"
companies of boys had met for

conflict, according to previous appointment.
Tom was General of one of

these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend)
General of the other. These

two great commanders did not condescend to
fight in person--that being

better suited to the still smaller fry--but
sat together on an eminence

and conducted the field operations by orders
delivered through aides-de-

camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a
long and hard-fought

battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners
exchanged, the terms of

the next disagreement agreed upon, and the
day for the necessary battle

appointed; after which the armies fell into
line and marched away, and

Tom turned homeward alone.

As he was passing by the house where Jeff
Thatcher lived, he saw a new

girl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed
creature with yellow hair

plaited into two long-tails, white summer
frock and embroidered

pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell
without firing a shot. A

certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his
heart and left not even a

memory of herself behind. He had thought he
loved her to distraction;

he had regarded his passion as adoration; and
behold it was only a poor

little evanescent partiality. He had been
months winning her; she had

confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the
happiest and the proudest

boy in the world only seven short days, and
here in one instant of time

she had gone out of his heart like a casual
stranger whose visit is

done.

He worshipped this new angel with furtive
eye, till he saw that she

had discovered him; then he pretended he did
not know she was present,

and began to "show off" in all sorts of
absurd boyish ways, in order to

win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque
foolishness for some

time; but by-and-by, while he was in the
midst of some dangerous

gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and
saw that the little girl

was wending her way toward the house. Tom
came up to the fence and

leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would
tarry yet awhile longer.

She halted a moment on the steps and then
moved toward the door. Tom

heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on
the threshold. But his face

lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy
over the fence a moment

before she disappeared.

The boy ran around and stopped within a foot
or two of the flower, and

then shaded his eyes with his hand and began
to look down street as if

he had discovered something of interest going
on in that direction.

Presently he picked up a straw and began
trying to balance it on his

nose, with his head tilted far back; and as
he moved from side to side,

in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer
toward the pansy; finally

his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes
closed upon it, and he

hopped away with the treasure and disappeared
round the corner. But

only for a minute--only while he could button
the flower inside his

jacket, next his heart--or next his stomach,
possibly, for he was not

much posted in anatomy, and not
hypercritical, anyway.

He returned, now, and hung about the fence
till nightfall, "showing

off," as before; but the girl never exhibited
herself again, though Tom

comforted himself a little with the hope that
she had been near some

window, meantime, and been aware of his
attentions. Finally he strode

home reluctantly, with his poor head full of
visions.

All through supper his spirits were so high
that his aunt wondered

"what had got into the child." He took a good
scolding about clodding

Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the
least. He tried to steal sugar

under his aunt's very nose, and got his
knuckles rapped for it. He said:

"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes
it."

"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you
do. You'd be always into

that sugar if I warn't watching you."

Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and
Sid, happy in his

immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl--a sort
of glorying over Tom which

was wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers
slipped and the bowl dropped

and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such
ecstasies that he even

controlled his tongue and was silent. He said
to himself that he would

not speak a word, even when his aunt came in,
but would sit perfectly

still till she asked who did the mischief;
and then he would tell, and

there would be nothing so good in the world
as to see that pet model

"catch it." He was so brimful of exultation
that he could hardly hold

himself when the old lady came back and stood
above the wreck

discharging lightnings of wrath from over her
spectacles. He said to

himself, "Now it's coming!" And the next
instant he was sprawling on

the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to
strike again when Tom cried

out:

"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting ME
for?--Sid broke it!"

Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked
for healing pity. But

when she got her tongue again, she only
said:

"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I
reckon. You been into some

other audacious mischief when I wasn't
around, like enough."

Then her conscience reproached her, and she
yearned to say something

kind and loving; but she judged that this
would be construed into a

confession that she had been in the wrong,
and discipline forbade that.

So she kept silence, and went about her
affairs with a troubled heart.

Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes.
He knew that in her heart

his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was
morosely gratified by the

consciousness of it. He would hang out no
signals, he would take notice

of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell
upon him, now and then,

through a film of tears, but he refused
recognition of it. He pictured

himself lying sick unto death and his aunt
bending over him beseeching

one little forgiving word, but he would turn
his face to the wall, and

die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she
feel then? And he pictured

himself brought home from the river, dead,
with his curls all wet, and

his sore heart at rest. How she would throw
herself upon him, and how

her tears would fall like rain, and her lips
pray God to give her back

her boy and she would never, never abuse him
any more! But he would lie

there cold and white and make no sign--a poor
little sufferer, whose

griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his
feelings with the pathos

of these dreams, that he had to keep
swallowing, he was so like to

choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water,
which overflowed when he

winked, and ran down and trickled from the
end of his nose. And such a

luxury to him was this petting of his
sorrows, that he could not bear

to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating
delight intrude upon it;

it was too sacred for such contact; and so,
presently, when his cousin

Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of
seeing home again after an

age-long visit of one week to the country, he
got up and moved in

clouds and darkness out at one door as she
brought song and sunshine in

at the other.

He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of
boys, and sought

desolate places that were in harmony with his
spirit. A log raft in the

river invited him, and he seated himself on
its outer edge and

contemplated the dreary vastness of the
stream, wishing, the while,

that he could only be drowned, all at once
and unconsciously, without

undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised
by nature. Then he thought

of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and
wilted, and it mightily

increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if
she would pity him if she

knew? Would she cry, and wish that she had a
right to put her arms

around his neck and comfort him? Or would she
turn coldly away like all

the hollow world? This picture brought such
an agony of pleasurable

suffering that he worked it over and over
again in his mind and set it

up in new and varied lights, till he wore it
threadbare. At last he

rose up sighing and departed in the
darkness.

About half-past nine or ten o'clock he came
along the deserted street

to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused
a moment; no sound fell

upon his listening ear; a candle was casting
a dull glow upon the

curtain of a second-story window. Was the
sacred presence there? He

climbed the fence, threaded his stealthy way
through the plants, till

he stood under that window; he looked up at
it long, and with emotion;

then he laid him down on the ground under it,
disposing himself upon

his back, with his hands clasped upon his
breast and holding his poor

wilted flower. And thus he would die--out in
the cold world, with no

shelter over his homeless head, no friendly
hand to wipe the death-

damps from his brow, no loving face to bend
pityingly over him when the

great agony came. And thus SHE would see him
when she looked out upon

the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one
little tear upon his poor,

lifeless form, would she heave one little
sigh to see a bright young

life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut
down?

The window went up, a maid-servant's
discordant voice profaned the

holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the
prone martyr's remains!

The strangling hero sprang up with a
relieving snort. There was a whiz

as of a missile in the air, mingled with the
murmur of a curse, a sound

as of shivering glass followed, and a small,
vague form went over the

fence and shot away in the gloom.

Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for
bed, was surveying his

drenched garments by the light of a tallow
dip, Sid woke up; but if he

had any dim idea of making any "references to
allusions," he thought

better of it and held his peace, for there
was danger in Tom's eye.

Tom turned in without the added vexation of
prayers, and Sid made

mental note of the omission.

CHAPTER IV

THE sun rose upon a tranquil world, and
beamed down upon the peaceful

village like a benediction. Breakfast over,
Aunt Polly had family

worship: it began with a prayer built from
the ground up of solid

courses of Scriptural quotations, welded
together with a thin mortar of

originality; and from the summit of this she
delivered a grim chapter

of the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.

Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak,
and went to work to "get

his verses." Sid had learned his lesson days
before. Tom bent all his

energies to the memorizing of five verses,
and he chose part of the

Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no
verses that were shorter.

At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague
general idea of his lesson,

but no more, for his mind was traversing the
whole field of human

thought, and his hands were busy with
distracting recreations. Mary

took his book to hear him recite, and he
tried to find his way through

the fog:

"Blessed are the--a--a--"

"Poor"--

"Yes--poor; blessed are the poor--a--a--"

"In spirit--"

"In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit,
for they--they--"

"THEIRS--"

"For THEIRS. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom

of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for
they--they--"

"Sh--"

"For they--a--"

"S, H, A--"

"For they S, H--Oh, I don't know what it
is!"

"SHALL!"

"Oh, SHALL! for they shall--for they
shall--a--a--shall mourn--a--a--

blessed are they that shall--they
that--a--they that shall mourn, for

they shall--a--shall WHAT? Why don't you tell
me, Mary?--what do you

want to be so mean for?"

"Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I'm not
teasing you. I wouldn't

do that. You must go and learn it again.
Don't you be discouraged, Tom,

you'll manage it--and if you do, I'll give
you something ever so nice.

There, now, that's a good boy."

"All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it
is."

"Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it's
nice, it is nice."

"You bet you that's so, Mary. All right, I'll
tackle it again."

And he did "tackle it again"--and under the
double pressure of

curiosity and prospective gain he did it with
such spirit that he

accomplished a shining success. Mary gave him
a brand-new "Barlow"

knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the
convulsion of delight that

swept his system shook him to his
foundations. True, the knife would

not cut anything, but it was a "sure-enough"
Barlow, and there was

inconceivable grandeur in that--though where
the Western boys ever got

the idea that such a weapon could possibly be
counterfeited to its

injury is an imposing mystery and will always
remain so, perhaps. Tom

contrived to scarify the cupboard with it,
and was arranging to begin

on the bureau, when he was called off to
dress for Sunday-school.

Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a
piece of soap, and he went

outside the door and set the basin on a
little bench there; then he

dipped the soap in the water and laid it
down; turned up his sleeves;

poured out the water on the ground, gently,
and then entered the

kitchen and began to wipe his face diligently
on the towel behind the

door. But Mary removed the towel and
said:

"Now ain't you ashamed, Tom. You mustn't be so
bad. Water won't hurt

you."

Tom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was
refilled, and this time

he stood over it a little while, gathering
resolution; took in a big

breath and began. When he entered the kitchen
presently, with both eyes

shut and groping for the towel with his
hands, an honorable testimony

of suds and water was dripping from his face.
But when he emerged from

the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for
the clean territory stopped

short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask;
below and beyond this line

there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil
that spread downward in

front and backward around his neck. Mary took
him in hand, and when she

was done with him he was a man and a brother,
without distinction of

color, and his saturated hair was neatly
brushed, and its short curls

wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general
effect. [He privately

smoothed out the curls, with labor and
difficulty, and plastered his

hair close down to his head; for he held
curls to be effeminate, and

his own filled his life with bitterness.]
Then Mary got out a suit of

his clothing that had been used only on
Sundays during two years--they

were simply called his "other clothes"--and
so by that we know the

size of his wardrobe. The girl "put him to
rights" after he had dressed

himself; she buttoned his neat roundabout up
to his chin, turned his

vast shirt collar down over his shoulders,
brushed him off and crowned

him with his speckled straw hat. He now
looked exceedingly improved and

uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable
as he looked; for there

was a restraint about whole clothes and
cleanliness that galled him. He

hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but
the hope was blighted; she

coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was
the custom, and brought them

out. He lost his temper and said he was
always being made to do

everything he didn't want to do. But Mary
said, persuasively:

"Please, Tom--that's a good boy."

So he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was
soon ready, and the three

children set out for Sunday-school--a place
that Tom hated with his

whole heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of
it.

Sabbath-school hours were from nine to
half-past ten; and then church

service. Two of the children always remained
for the sermon

voluntarily, and the other always remained
too--for stronger reasons.

The church's high-backed, uncushioned pews
would seat about three

hundred persons; the edifice was but a small,
plain affair, with a sort

of pine board tree-box on top of it for a
steeple. At the door Tom

dropped back a step and accosted a
Sunday-dressed comrade:

"Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?"

"Yes."

"What'll you take for her?"

"What'll you give?"

"Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook."

"Less see 'em."

Tom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and
the property changed hands.

Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for
three red tickets, and

some small trifle or other for a couple of
blue ones. He waylaid other

boys as they came, and went on buying tickets
of various colors ten or

fifteen minutes longer. He entered the
church, now, with a swarm of

clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to
his seat and started a

quarrel with the first boy that came handy.
The teacher, a grave,

elderly man, interfered; then turned his back
a moment and Tom pulled a

boy's hair in the next bench, and was
absorbed in his book when the boy

turned around; stuck a pin in another boy,
presently, in order to hear

him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from
his teacher. Tom's whole

class were of a pattern--restless, noisy, and
troublesome. When they

came to recite their lessons, not one of them
knew his verses

perfectly, but had to be prompted all along.
However, they worried

through, and each got his reward--in small
blue tickets, each with a

passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket
was pay for two verses of

the recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a
red one, and could be

exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a
yellow one; for ten yellow

tickets the superintendent gave a very
plainly bound Bible (worth forty

cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How
many of my readers would

have the industry and application to memorize
two thousand verses, even

for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired
two Bibles in this way--it

was the patient work of two years--and a boy
of German parentage had

won four or five. He once recited three
thousand verses without

stopping; but the strain upon his mental
faculties was too great, and

he was little better than an idiot from that
day forth--a grievous

misfortune for the school, for on great
occasions, before company, the

superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had
always made this boy come out

and "spread himself." Only the older pupils
managed to keep their

tickets and stick to their tedious work long
enough to get a Bible, and

so the delivery of one of these prizes was a
rare and noteworthy

circumstance; the successful pupil was so
great and conspicuous for

that day that on the spot every scholar's
heart was fired with a fresh

ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks.
It is possible that Tom's

mental stomach had never really hungered for
one of those prizes, but

unquestionably his entire being had for many
a day longed for the glory

and the eclat that came with it.

In due course the superintendent stood up in
front of the pulpit, with

a closed hymn-book in his hand and his
forefinger inserted between its

leaves, and commanded attention. When a
Sunday-school superintendent

makes his customary little speech, a
hymn-book in the hand is as

necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music
in the hand of a singer

who stands forward on the platform and sings
a solo at a concert--

though why, is a mystery: for neither the
hymn-book nor the sheet of

music is ever referred to by the sufferer.
This superintendent was a

slim creature of thirty-five, with a sandy
goatee and short sandy hair;

he wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper
edge almost reached his

ears and whose sharp points curved forward
abreast the corners of his

mouth--a fence that compelled a straight
lookout ahead, and a turning

of the whole body when a side view was
required; his chin was propped

on a spreading cravat which was as broad and
as long as a bank-note,

and had fringed ends; his boot toes were
turned sharply up, in the

fashion of the day, like sleigh-runners--an
effect patiently and

laboriously produced by the young men by
sitting with their toes

pressed against a wall for hours together.
Mr. Walters was very earnest

of mien, and very sincere and honest at
heart; and he held sacred

things and places in such reverence, and so
separated them from worldly

matters, that unconsciously to himself his
Sunday-school voice had

acquired a peculiar intonation which was
wholly absent on week-days. He

began after this fashion:

"Now, children, I want you all to sit up just
as straight and pretty

as you can and give me all your attention for
a minute or two. There--

that is it. That is the way good little boys
and girls should do. I see

one little girl who is looking out of the
window--I am afraid she

thinks I am out there somewhere--perhaps up
in one of the trees making

a speech to the little birds. [Applausive
titter.] I want to tell you

how good it makes me feel to see so many
bright, clean little faces

assembled in a place like this, learning to
do right and be good." And

so forth and so on. It is not necessary to
set down the rest of the

oration. It was of a pattern which does not
vary, and so it is familiar

to us all.

The latter third of the speech was marred by
the resumption of fights

and other recreations among certain of the
bad boys, and by fidgetings

and whisperings that extended far and wide,
washing even to the bases

of isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid
and Mary. But now every

sound ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of
Mr. Walters' voice, and

the conclusion of the speech was received
with a burst of silent

gratitude.

A good part of the whispering had been
occasioned by an event which

was more or less rare--the entrance of
visitors: lawyer Thatcher,

accompanied by a very feeble and aged man; a
fine, portly, middle-aged

gentleman with iron-gray hair; and a
dignified lady who was doubtless

the latter's wife. The lady was leading a
child. Tom had been restless

and full of chafings and repinings;
conscience-smitten, too--he could

not meet Amy Lawrence's eye, he could not
brook her loving gaze. But

when he saw this small new-comer his soul was
all ablaze with bliss in

a moment. The next moment he was "showing
off" with all his might--

cuffing boys, pulling hair, making faces--in
a word, using every art

that seemed likely to fascinate a girl and
win her applause. His

exaltation had but one alloy--the memory of
his humiliation in this

angel's garden--and that record in sand was
fast washing out, under

the waves of happiness that were sweeping
over it now.

The visitors were given the highest seat of
honor, and as soon as Mr.

Walters' speech was finished, he introduced
them to the school. The

middle-aged man turned out to be a prodigious
personage--no less a one

than the county judge--altogether the most
august creation these

children had ever looked upon--and they
wondered what kind of material

he was made of--and they half wanted to hear
him roar, and were half

afraid he might, too. He was from Constantinople, twelve miles away--so

he had travelled, and seen the world--these
very eyes had looked upon

the county court-house--which was said to
have a tin roof. The awe

which these reflections inspired was attested
by the impressive silence

and the ranks of staring eyes. This was the
great Judge Thatcher,

brother of their own lawyer. Jeff Thatcher
immediately went forward, to

be familiar with the great man and be envied
by the school. It would

have been music to his soul to hear the
whisperings:

"Look at him, Jim! He's a going up there.
Say--look! he's a going to

shake hands with him--he IS shaking hands
with him! By jings, don't you

wish you was Jeff?"

Mr. Walters fell to "showing off," with all
sorts of official

bustlings and activities, giving orders,
delivering judgments,

discharging directions here, there,
everywhere that he could find a

target. The librarian "showed off"--running
hither and thither with his

arms full of books and making a deal of the
splutter and fuss that

insect authority delights in. The young lady
teachers "showed off"--

bending sweetly over pupils that were lately
being boxed, lifting

pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and
patting good ones

lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers
"showed off" with small

scoldings and other little displays of
authority and fine attention to

discipline--and most of the teachers, of both
sexes, found business up

at the library, by the pulpit; and it was
business that frequently had

to be done over again two or three times
(with much seeming vexation).

The little girls "showed off" in various
ways, and the little boys

"showed off" with such diligence that the air
was thick with paper wads

and the murmur of scufflings. And above it
all the great man sat and

beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the
house, and warmed himself

in the sun of his own grandeur--for he was
"showing off," too.

There was only one thing wanting to make Mr.
Walters' ecstasy

complete, and that was a chance to deliver a
Bible-prize and exhibit a

prodigy. Several pupils had a few yellow
tickets, but none had enough--

he had been around among the star pupils
inquiring. He would have given

worlds, now, to have that German lad back
again with a sound mind.

And now at this moment, when hope was dead,
Tom Sawyer came forward

with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets,
and ten blue ones, and

demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out
of a clear sky. Walters

was not expecting an application from this
source for the next ten

years. But there was no getting around
it--here were the certified

checks, and they were good for their face.
Tom was therefore elevated

to a place with the Judge and the other
elect, and the great news was

announced from headquarters. It was the most
stunning surprise of the

decade, and so profound was the sensation
that it lifted the new hero

up to the judicial one's altitude, and the
school had two marvels to

gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all
eaten up with envy--but

those that suffered the bitterest pangs were
those who perceived too

late that they themselves had contributed to
this hated splendor by

trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had
amassed in selling

whitewashing privileges. These despised
themselves, as being the dupes

of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the
grass.

The prize was delivered to Tom with as much
effusion as the

superintendent could pump up under the
circumstances; but it lacked

somewhat of the true gush, for the poor
fellow's instinct taught him

that there was a mystery here that could not
well bear the light,

perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this
boy had warehoused two

thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his
premises--a dozen would

strain his capacity, without a doubt.

Amy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she
tried to make Tom see it in

her face--but he wouldn't look. She wondered;
then she was just a grain

troubled; next a dim suspicion came and
went--came again; she watched;

a furtive glance told her worlds--and then
her heart broke, and she was

jealous, and angry, and the tears came and
she hated everybody. Tom

most of all (she thought).

Tom was introduced to the Judge; but his
tongue was tied, his breath

would hardly come, his heart quaked--partly
because of the awful

greatness of the man, but mainly because he
was her parent. He would

have liked to fall down and worship him, if
it were in the dark. The

Judge put his hand on Tom's head and called
him a fine little man, and

asked him what his name was. The boy
stammered, gasped, and got it out:

"Tom."

"Oh, no, not Tom--it is--"

"Thomas."

"Ah, that's it. I thought there was more to
it, maybe. That's very

well. But you've another one I daresay, and
you'll tell it to me, won't

you?"

"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas,"
said Walters, "and say

sir. You mustn't forget your manners."

"Thomas Sawyer--sir."

"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine,
manly little fellow.

Two thousand verses is a great many--very,
very great many. And you

never can be sorry for the trouble you took
to learn them; for

knowledge is worth more than anything there
is in the world; it's what

makes great men and good men; you'll be a
great man and a good man

yourself, some day, Thomas, and then you'll
look back and say, It's all

owing to the precious Sunday-school
privileges of my boyhood--it's all

owing to my dear teachers that taught me to
learn--it's all owing to

the good superintendent, who encouraged me,
and watched over me, and

gave me a beautiful Bible--a splendid elegant
Bible--to keep and have

it all for my own, always--it's all owing to
right bringing up! That is

what you will say, Thomas--and you wouldn't
take any money for those

two thousand verses--no indeed you wouldn't.
And now you wouldn't mind

telling me and this lady some of the things
you've learned--no, I know

you wouldn't--for we are proud of little boys
that learn. Now, no

doubt you know the names of all the twelve
disciples. Won't you tell us

the names of the first two that were
appointed?"

Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking
sheepish. He blushed,

now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart
sank within him. He said to

himself, it is not possible that the boy can
answer the simplest

question--why DID the Judge ask him? Yet he
felt obliged to speak up

and say:

"Answer the gentleman, Thomas--don't be
afraid."

Tom still hung fire.

"Now I know you'll tell me," said the lady.
"The names of the first

two disciples were--"

"DAVID AND GOLIAH!"

Let us draw the curtain of charity over the
rest of the scene.

CHAPTER V

ABOUT half-past ten the cracked bell of the
small church began to

ring, and presently the people began to
gather for the morning sermon.

The Sunday-school children distributed
themselves about the house and

occupied pews with their parents, so as to be
under supervision. Aunt

Polly came, and Tom and Sid and Mary sat with
her--Tom being placed

next the aisle, in order that he might be as
far away from the open

window and the seductive outside summer
scenes as possible. The crowd

filed up the aisles: the aged and needy
postmaster, who had seen better

days; the mayor and his wife--for they had a
mayor there, among other

unnecessaries; the justice of the peace; the
widow Douglass, fair,

smart, and forty, a generous, good-hearted
soul and well-to-do, her

hill mansion the only palace in the town, and
the most hospitable and

much the most lavish in the matter of
festivities that St.
Petersburg

could boast; the bent and venerable Major and
Mrs. Ward; lawyer

Riverson, the new notable from a distance;
next the belle of the

village, followed by a troop of lawn-clad and
ribbon-decked young heart-

breakers; then all the young clerks in town
in a body--for they had

stood in the vestibule sucking their
cane-heads, a circling wall of

oiled and simpering admirers, till the last
girl had run their gantlet;

and last of all came the Model Boy, Willie
Mufferson, taking as heedful

care of his mother as if she were cut glass.
He always brought his

mother to church, and was the pride of all
the matrons. The boys all

hated him, he was so good. And besides, he
had been "thrown up to them"

so much. His white handkerchief was hanging
out of his pocket behind,

as usual on Sundays--accidentally. Tom had no
handkerchief, and he

looked upon boys who had as snobs.

The congregation being fully assembled, now,
the bell rang once more,

to warn laggards and stragglers, and then a
solemn hush fell upon the

church which was only broken by the tittering
and whispering of the

choir in the gallery. The choir always
tittered and whispered all

through service. There was once a church
choir that was not ill-bred,

but I have forgotten where it was, now. It
was a great many years ago,

and I can scarcely remember anything about
it, but I think it was in

some foreign country.

The minister gave out the hymn, and read it
through with a relish, in

a peculiar style which was much admired in
that part of the country.

His voice began on a medium key and climbed
steadily up till it reached

a certain point, where it bore with strong
emphasis upon the topmost

word and then plunged down as if from a
spring-board:

Shall I be car-ri-ed toe the skies, on
flow'ry BEDS of ease,

Whilst others fight to win the prize, and
sail thro' BLOODY seas?

He was regarded as a wonderful reader. At
church "sociables" he was

always called upon to read poetry; and when
he was through, the ladies

would lift up their hands and let them fall
helplessly in their laps,

and "wall" their eyes, and shake their heads,
as much as to say, "Words

cannot express it; it is too beautiful, TOO
beautiful for this mortal

earth."

After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr.
Sprague turned himself into

a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of
meetings and societies and

things till it seemed that the list would
stretch out to the crack of

doom--a queer custom which is still kept up
in America, even in cities,

away here in this age of abundant newspapers.
Often, the less there is

to justify a traditional custom, the harder
it is to get rid of it.

And now the minister prayed. A good, generous
prayer it was, and went

into details: it pleaded for the church, and
the little children of the

church; for the other churches of the
village; for the village itself;

for the county; for the State; for the State
officers; for the United

States; for the churches of the United
States; for Congress; for the

President; for the officers of the
Government; for poor sailors, tossed

by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions
groaning under the heel of

European monarchies and Oriental despotisms;
for such as have the light

and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes
to see nor ears to hear

withal; for the heathen in the far islands of
the sea; and closed with

a supplication that the words he was about to
speak might find grace

and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile
ground, yielding in time a

grateful harvest of good. Amen.

There was a rustling of dresses, and the
standing congregation sat

down. The boy whose history this book relates
did not enjoy the prayer,

he only endured it--if he even did that much.
He was restive all

through it; he kept tally of the details of
the prayer, unconsciously--

for he was not listening, but he knew the
ground of old, and the

clergyman's regular route over it--and when a
little trifle of new

matter was interlarded, his ear detected it
and his whole nature

resented it; he considered additions unfair,
and scoundrelly. In the

midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back
of the pew in front of

him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing
its hands together,

embracing its head with its arms, and
polishing it so vigorously that

it seemed to almost part company with the
body, and the slender thread

of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its
wings with its hind legs

and smoothing them to its body as if they had
been coat-tails; going

through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if
it knew it was perfectly

safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as
Tom's hands itched to grab for

it they did not dare--he believed his soul
would be instantly destroyed

if he did such a thing while the prayer was
going on. But with the

closing sentence his hand began to curve and
steal forward; and the

instant the "Amen" was out the fly was a
prisoner of war. His aunt

detected the act and made him let it go.

The minister gave out his text and droned
along monotonously through

an argument that was so prosy that many a
head by and by began to nod--

and yet it was an argument that dealt in
limitless fire and brimstone

and thinned the predestined elect down to a
company so small as to be

hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the
pages of the sermon; after

church he always knew how many pages there
had been, but he seldom knew

anything else about the discourse. However,
this time he was really

interested for a little while. The minister
made a grand and moving

picture of the assembling together of the
world's hosts at the

millennium when the lion and the lamb should
lie down together and a

little child should lead them. But the
pathos, the lesson, the moral of

the great spectacle were lost upon the boy;
he only thought of the

conspicuousness of the principal character
before the on-looking

nations; his face lit with the thought, and
he said to himself that he

wished he could be that child, if it was a
tame lion.

Now he lapsed into suffering again, as the
dry argument was resumed.

Presently he bethought him of a treasure he
had and got it out. It was

a large black beetle with formidable jaws--a
"pinchbug," he called it.

It was in a percussion-cap box. The first
thing the beetle did was to

take him by the finger. A natural fillip
followed, the beetle went

floundering into the aisle and lit on its
back, and the hurt finger

went into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay
there working its helpless

legs, unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and
longed for it; but it was

safe out of his reach. Other people
uninterested in the sermon found

relief in the beetle, and they eyed it too.
Presently a vagrant poodle

dog came idling along, sad at heart, lazy
with the summer softness and

the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for
change. He spied the beetle;

the drooping tail lifted and wagged. He
surveyed the prize; walked

around it; smelt at it from a safe distance;
walked around it again;

grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then
lifted his lip and made a

gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made
another, and another;

began to enjoy the diversion; subsided to his
stomach with the beetle

between his paws, and continued his
experiments; grew weary at last,

and then indifferent and absent-minded. His
head nodded, and little by

little his chin descended and touched the
enemy, who seized it. There

was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle's
head, and the beetle fell a

couple of yards away, and lit on its back
once more. The neighboring

spectators shook with a gentle inward joy,
several faces went behind

fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely
happy. The dog looked

foolish, and probably felt so; but there was
resentment in his heart,

too, and a craving for revenge. So he went to
the beetle and began a

wary attack on it again; jumping at it from
every point of a circle,

lighting with his fore-paws within an inch of
the creature, making even

closer snatches at it with his teeth, and
jerking his head till his

ears flapped again. But he grew tired once
more, after a while; tried

to amuse himself with a fly but found no
relief; followed an ant

around, with his nose close to the floor, and
quickly wearied of that;

yawned, sighed, forgot the beetle entirely,
and sat down on it. Then

there was a wild yelp of agony and the poodle
went sailing up the

aisle; the yelps continued, and so did the
dog; he crossed the house in

front of the altar; he flew down the other
aisle; he crossed before the

doors; he clamored up the home-stretch; his
anguish grew with his

progress, till presently he was but a woolly
comet moving in its orbit

with the gleam and the speed of light. At
last the frantic sufferer

sheered from its course, and sprang into its
master's lap; he flung it

out of the window, and the voice of distress
quickly thinned away and

died in the distance.

By this time the whole church was red-faced
and suffocating with

suppressed laughter, and the sermon had come
to a dead standstill. The

discourse was resumed presently, but it went
lame and halting, all

possibility of impressiveness being at an
end; for even the gravest

sentiments were constantly being received
with a smothered burst of

unholy mirth, under cover of some remote
pew-back, as if the poor

parson had said a rarely facetious thing. It
was a genuine relief to

the whole congregation when the ordeal was
over and the benediction

pronounced.

Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking
to himself that there

was some satisfaction about divine service
when there was a bit of

variety in it. He had but one marring
thought; he was willing that the

dog should play with his pinchbug, but he did
not think it was upright

in him to carry it off.

CHAPTER VI

MONDAY morning found Tom Sawyer miserable.
Monday morning always found

him so--because it began another week's slow
suffering in school. He

generally began that day with wishing he had
had no intervening

holiday, it made the going into captivity and
fetters again so much

more odious.

Tom lay thinking. Presently it occurred to
him that he wished he was

sick; then he could stay home from school.
Here was a vague

possibility. He canvassed his system. No
ailment was found, and he

investigated again. This time he thought he
could detect colicky

symptoms, and he began to encourage them with
considerable hope. But

they soon grew feeble, and presently died
wholly away. He reflected

further. Suddenly he discovered something.
One of his upper front teeth

was loose. This was lucky; he was about to
begin to groan, as a

"starter," as he called it, when it occurred
to him that if he came

into court with that argument, his aunt would
pull it out, and that

would hurt. So he thought he would hold the
tooth in reserve for the

present, and seek further. Nothing offered
for some little time, and

then he remembered hearing the doctor tell
about a certain thing that

laid up a patient for two or three weeks and
threatened to make him

lose a finger. So the boy eagerly drew his
sore toe from under the

sheet and held it up for inspection. But now
he did not know the

necessary symptoms. However, it seemed well
worth while to chance it,

so he fell to groaning with considerable
spirit.

But Sid slept on unconscious.

Tom groaned louder, and fancied that he began
to feel pain in the toe.

No result from Sid.

Tom was panting with his exertions by this
time. He took a rest and

then swelled himself up and fetched a
succession of admirable groans.

Sid snored on.

Tom was aggravated. He said, "Sid, Sid!" and
shook him. This course

worked well, and Tom began to groan again.
Sid yawned, stretched, then

brought himself up on his elbow with a snort,
and began to stare at

Tom. Tom went on groaning. Sid said:

"Tom! Say, Tom!" [No response.] "Here, Tom!
TOM! What is the matter,

Tom?" And he shook him and looked in his face
anxiously.

Tom moaned out:

"Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me."

"Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call
auntie."

"No--never mind. It'll be over by and by,
maybe. Don't call anybody."

"But I must! DON'T groan so, Tom, it's awful.
How long you been this

way?"

"Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll
kill me."

"Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? Oh, Tom,
DON'T! It makes my

flesh crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the
matter?"

"I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.]
Everything you've ever done

to me. When I'm gone--"

"Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't,
Tom--oh, don't. Maybe--"

"I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em
so, Sid. And Sid, you

give my window-sash and my cat with one eye
to that new girl that's

come to town, and tell her--"

But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone.
Tom was suffering in

reality, now, so handsomely was his
imagination working, and so his

groans had gathered quite a genuine tone.

Sid flew down-stairs and said:

"Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!"

"Dying!"

"Yes'm. Don't wait--come quick!"

"Rubbage! I don't believe it!"

But she fled up-stairs, nevertheless, with
Sid and Mary at her heels.

And her face grew white, too, and her lip
trembled. When she reached

the bedside she gasped out:

"You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with
you?"

"Oh, auntie, I'm--"

"What's the matter with you--what is the
matter with you, child?"

"Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!"

The old lady sank down into a chair and
laughed a little, then cried a

little, then did both together. This restored
her and she said:

"Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you
shut up that nonsense and

climb out of this."

The groans ceased and the pain vanished from
the toe. The boy felt a

little foolish, and he said:

"Aunt Polly, it SEEMED mortified, and it hurt
so I never minded my

tooth at all."

"Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with
your tooth?"

"One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly
awful."

"There, there, now, don't begin that groaning
again. Open your mouth.

Well--your tooth IS loose, but you're not
going to die about that.

Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of
fire out of the kitchen."

Tom said:

"Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It
don't hurt any more. I wish

I may never stir if it does. Please don't,
auntie. I don't want to stay

home from school."

"Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was
because you thought

you'd get to stay home from school and go
a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love

you so, and you seem to try every way you can
to break my old heart

with your outrageousness." By this time the
dental instruments were

ready. The old lady made one end of the silk
thread fast to Tom's tooth

with a loop and tied the other to the
bedpost. Then she seized the

chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost
into the boy's face. The

tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now.

But all trials bring their compensations. As
Tom wended to school

after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy
he met because the gap in

his upper row of teeth enabled him to
expectorate in a new and

admirable way. He gathered quite a following
of lads interested in the

exhibition; and one that had cut his finger
and had been a centre of

fascination and homage up to this time, now
found himself suddenly

without an adherent, and shorn of his glory.
His heart was heavy, and

he said with a disdain which he did not feel
that it wasn't anything to

spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said,
"Sour grapes!" and he

wandered away a dismantled hero.

Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of
the village, Huckleberry

Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry
was cordially hated and

dreaded by all the mothers of the town,
because he was idle and lawless

and vulgar and bad--and because all their
children admired him so, and

delighted in his forbidden society, and
wished they dared to be like

him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable
boys, in that he envied

Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and
was under strict orders

not to play with him. So he played with him
every time he got a chance.

Huckleberry was always dressed in the
cast-off clothes of full-grown

men, and they were in perennial bloom and
fluttering with rags. His hat

was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped
out of its brim; his coat,

when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels
and had the rearward buttons

far down the back; but one suspender
supported his trousers; the seat

of the trousers bagged low and contained
nothing, the fringed legs

dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.

Huckleberry came and went, at his own free
will. He slept on doorsteps

in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in
wet; he did not have to go to

school or to church, or call any being master
or obey anybody; he could

go fishing or swimming when and where he
chose, and stay as long as it

suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he
could sit up as late as he

pleased; he was always the first boy that
went barefoot in the spring

and the last to resume leather in the fall;
he never had to wash, nor

put on clean clothes; he could swear
wonderfully. In a word, everything

that goes to make life precious that boy had.
So thought every

harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St.
Petersburg.

Tom hailed the romantic outcast:

"Hello, Huckleberry!"

"Hello yourself, and see how you like it."

"What's that you got?"

"Dead cat."

"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff.
Where'd you get him ?"

"Bought him off'n a boy."

"What did you give?"

"I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got
at the slaughter-house."

"Where'd you get the blue ticket?"

"Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for
a hoop-stick."

"Say--what is dead cats good for, Huck?"

"Good for? Cure warts with."

"No! Is that so? I know something that's
better."

"I bet you don't. What is it?"

"Why, spunk-water."

"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for
spunk-water."

"You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try
it?"

"No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did."

"Who told you so!"

"Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told
Johnny Baker, and Johnny

told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and
Ben told a nigger, and

the nigger told me. There now!"

"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways
all but the nigger. I

don't know HIM. But I never see a nigger that
WOULDN'T lie. Shucks! Now

you tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck."

"Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten
stump where the rain-

water was."

"In the daytime?"

"Certainly."

"With his face to the stump?"

"Yes. Least I reckon so."

"Did he say anything?"

"I don't reckon he did. I don't know."

"Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with
spunk-water such a blame

fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to
do any good. You got to go

all by yourself, to the middle of the woods,
where you know there's a

spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight
you back up against the

stump and jam your hand in and say:

'Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal
shorts,

Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these
warts,'

and then walk away quick, eleven steps, with
your eyes shut, and then

turn around three times and walk home without
speaking to anybody.

Because if you speak the charm's busted."

"Well, that sounds like a good way; but that
ain't the way Bob Tanner

done."

"No, sir, you can bet he didn't, becuz he's
the wartiest boy in this

town; and he wouldn't have a wart on him if
he'd knowed how to work

spunk-water. I've took off thousands of warts
off of my hands that way,

Huck. I play with frogs so much that I've
always got considerable many

warts. Sometimes I take 'em off with a
bean."

"Yes, bean's good. I've done that."

"Have you? What's your way?"

"You take and split the bean, and cut the wart
so as to get some

blood, and then you put the blood on one
piece of the bean and take and

dig a hole and bury it 'bout midnight at the
crossroads in the dark of

the moon, and then you burn up the rest of
the bean. You see that piece

that's got the blood on it will keep drawing
and drawing, trying to

fetch the other piece to it, and so that
helps the blood to draw the

wart, and pretty soon off she comes."

"Yes, that's it, Huck--that's it; though when
you're burying it if you

say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to
bother me!' it's better.

That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been
nearly to Coonville and

most everywheres. But say--how do you cure
'em with dead cats?"

"Why, you take your cat and go and get in the
graveyard 'long about

midnight when somebody that was wicked has
been buried; and when it's

midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or
three, but you can't see

'em, you can only hear something like the
wind, or maybe hear 'em talk;

and when they're taking that feller away, you
heave your cat after 'em

and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow
devil, warts follow cat, I'm

done with ye!' That'll fetch ANY wart."

"Sounds right. D'you ever try it, Huck?"

"No, but old Mother Hopkins told me."

"Well, I reckon it's so, then. Becuz they say
she's a witch."

"Say! Why, Tom, I KNOW she is. She witched
pap. Pap says so his own

self. He come along one day, and he see she
was a-witching him, so he

took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged,
he'd a got her. Well, that

very night he rolled off'n a shed wher' he
was a layin drunk, and broke

his arm."

"Why, that's awful. How did he know she was
a-witching him?"

"Lord, pap can tell, easy. Pap says when they
keep looking at you

right stiddy, they're a-witching you.
Specially if they mumble. Becuz

when they mumble they're saying the Lord's
Prayer backards."

"Say, Hucky, when you going to try the
cat?"

"To-night. I reckon they'll come after old
Hoss Williams to-night."

"But they buried him Saturday. Didn't they get
him Saturday night?"

"Why, how you talk! How could their charms
work till midnight?--and

THEN it's Sunday. Devils don't slosh around
much of a Sunday, I don't

reckon."

"I never thought of that. That's so. Lemme go
with you?"

"Of course--if you ain't afeard."

"Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?"

"Yes--and you meow back, if you get a chance.
Last time, you kep' me a-

meowing around till old Hays went to throwing
rocks at me and says

'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through
his window--but don't

you tell."

"I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz
auntie was watching me,

but I'll meow this time. Say--what's
that?"

"Nothing but a tick."

"Where'd you get him?"

"Out in the woods."

"What'll you take for him?"

"I don't know. I don't want to sell him."

"All right. It's a mighty small tick,
anyway."

"Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't
belong to them. I'm

satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick
for me."

"Sho, there's ticks a plenty. I could have a
thousand of 'em if I

wanted to."

"Well, why don't you? Becuz you know mighty
well you can't. This is a

pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first
one I've seen this year."

"Say, Huck--I'll give you my tooth for
him."

"Less see it."

Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully
unrolled it. Huckleberry

viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very
strong. At last he said:

"Is it genuwyne?"

Tom lifted his lip and showed the
vacancy.

"Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a
trade."

Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap
box that had lately been

the pinchbug's prison, and the boys
separated, each feeling wealthier

than before.

When Tom reached the little isolated frame
schoolhouse, he strode in

briskly, with the manner of one who had come
with all honest speed. He

hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into
his seat with business-

like alacrity. The master, throned on high in
his great splint-bottom

arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy
hum of study. The

interruption roused him.

"Thomas Sawyer!"

Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in
full, it meant trouble.

"Sir!"

"Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late
again, as usual?"

Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when
he saw two long tails of

yellow hair hanging down a back that he
recognized by the electric

sympathy of love; and by that form was THE
ONLY VACANT PLACE on the

girls' side of the schoolhouse. He instantly
said:

"I STOPPED TO TALK WITH HUCKLEBERRY FINN!"

The master's pulse stood still, and he stared
helplessly. The buzz of

study ceased. The pupils wondered if this
foolhardy boy had lost his

mind. The master said:

"You--you did what?"

"Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn."

There was no mistaking the words.

"Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding
confession I have ever

listened to. No mere ferule will answer for
this offence. Take off your

jacket."

The master's arm performed until it was tired
and the stock of

switches notably diminished. Then the order
followed:

"Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let
this be a warning to you."

The titter that rippled around the room
appeared to abash the boy, but

in reality that result was caused rather more
by his worshipful awe of

his unknown idol and the dread pleasure that
lay in his high good

fortune. He sat down upon the end of the pine
bench and the girl

hitched herself away from him with a toss of
her head. Nudges and winks

and whispers traversed the room, but Tom sat
still, with his arms upon

the long, low desk before him, and seemed to
study his book.

By and by attention ceased from him, and the
accustomed school murmur

rose upon the dull air once more. Presently
the boy began to steal

furtive glances at the girl. She observed it,
"made a mouth" at him and

gave him the back of her head for the space
of a minute. When she

cautiously faced around again, a peach lay
before her. She thrust it

away. Tom gently put it back. She thrust it
away again, but with less

animosity. Tom patiently returned it to its
place. Then she let it

remain. Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please
take it--I got more." The

girl glanced at the words, but made no sign.
Now the boy began to draw

something on the slate, hiding his work with
his left hand. For a time

the girl refused to notice; but her human
curiosity presently began to

manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs.
The boy worked on,

apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort
of noncommittal attempt to

see, but the boy did not betray that he was
aware of it. At last she

gave in and hesitatingly whispered:

"Let me see it."

Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a
house with two gable

ends to it and a corkscrew of smoke issuing
from the chimney. Then the

girl's interest began to fasten itself upon
the work and she forgot

everything else. When it was finished, she
gazed a moment, then

whispered:

"It's nice--make a man."

The artist erected a man in the front yard,
that resembled a derrick.

He could have stepped over the house; but the
girl was not

hypercritical; she was satisfied with the
monster, and whispered:

"It's a beautiful man--now make me coming
along."

Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and
straw limbs to it and

armed the spreading fingers with a portentous
fan. The girl said:

"It's ever so nice--I wish I could draw."

"It's easy," whispered Tom, "I'll learn
you."

"Oh, will you? When?"

"At noon. Do you go home to dinner?"

"I'll stay if you will."

"Good--that's a whack. What's your name?"

"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know.
It's Thomas Sawyer."

"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when
I'm good. You call me

Tom, will you?"

"Yes."

Now Tom began to scrawl something on the
slate, hiding the words from

the girl. But she was not backward this time.
She begged to see. Tom

said:

"Oh, it ain't anything."

"Yes it is."

"No it ain't. You don't want to see."

"Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me."

"You'll tell."

"No I won't--deed and deed and double deed
won't."

"You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long
as you live?"

"No, I won't ever tell ANYbody. Now let
me."

"Oh, YOU don't want to see!"

"Now that you treat me so, I WILL see." And
she put her small hand

upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom
pretending to resist in

earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees
till these words were

revealed: "I LOVE YOU."

"Oh, you bad thing!" And she hit his hand a
smart rap, but reddened

and looked pleased, nevertheless.

Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow,
fateful grip closing on his

ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that
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 although Tom's ear tingled, his
heart was jubilant.

As the school quieted down Tom made an honest
effort to study, but the

turmoil within him was too great. In turn he
took his place in the

reading class and made a botch of it; then in
the geography class and

turned lakes into mountains, mountains into
rivers, and rivers into

continents, till chaos was come again; then
in the spelling class, and

got "turned down," by a succession of mere
baby words, till he brought

up at the foot and yielded up the pewter
medal which he had worn with

ostentation for months.

CHAPTER VII

THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on
his book, the more his

ideas wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a
yawn, he gave it up. It

seemed to him that the noon recess would
never come. The air was

utterly dead. There was not a breath
stirring. It was the sleepiest of

sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five
and twenty studying

scholars soothed the soul like the spell that
is in the murmur of bees.

Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff
Hill lifted its soft green

sides through a shimmering veil of heat,
tinted with the purple of

distance; a few 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 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 lapel 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 awhile, 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."

"I 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?"

"I don't care whose tick he is--he's on my
side of the line, and you

sha'n't touch him."

"Well, I'll just bet I will, though. He'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 awhile

before when the master came tiptoeing 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 little while the two met at the
bottom of the lane, and

when they reached the school they 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."

"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What
I like is chewing-gum."

"Oh, 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.

"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."

"Oh, 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 tell a boy you won't

ever have anybody 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."

"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 sha'n't tell you."

"Shall I tell YOU?"

"Ye--yes--but some other time."

"No, now."

"No, not now--to-morrow."

"Oh, 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 ain't 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, ever never and forever. Will you?"

"No, I'll never love 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 with
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, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy
Lawrence--"

The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he
stopped, confused.

"Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever
been engaged to!"

The child began to cry. Tom said:

"Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her
any more."

"Yes, you do, Tom--you know you do."

Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but
she pushed him away and

turned her face to the wall, and went on
crying. Tom tried again, with

soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed
again. Then his pride was

up, and he strode away and went outside. He
stood about, restless and

uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door,
every now and then, hoping

she would repent and come to find him. But
she did not. Then he began

to feel badly and fear that he was in the
wrong. It was a hard struggle

with him to make new advances, now, but he
nerved himself to it and

entered. She was still standing back there in
the corner, sobbing, with

her face to the wall. Tom's heart smote him.
He went to her and stood a

moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed.
Then he said hesitatingly:

"Becky, I--I don't care for anybody but
you."

No reply--but sobs.

"Becky"--pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say
something?"

More sobs.

Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob
from the top of an

andiron, and passed it around her so that she
could see it, and said:

"Please, Becky, won't you take it?"

She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched
out of the house and over

the hills and far away, to return to school
no more that day. Presently

Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door;
he was not in sight; she

flew around to the play-yard; he was not
there. Then she called:

"Tom! Come back, Tom!"

She listened intently, but there was no
answer. She had no companions

but silence and loneliness. So she sat down
to cry again and upbraid

herself; and by this time the scholars began
to gather again, and she

had to hide her griefs and still her broken
heart and take up the cross

of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with
none among the strangers

about her to exchange sorrows with.

CHAPTER VIII

TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes
until he was well out of

the track of returning scholars, and then
fell into a moody jog. He

crossed a small "branch" two or three times,
because of a prevailing

juvenile superstition that to cross water
baffled pursuit. Half an hour

later he was disappearing behind the Douglas
mansion on the summit of

Cardiff Hill, and the schoolhouse was hardly
distinguishable away off

in the valley behind him. He entered a dense
wood, picked his pathless

way to the centre of it, and sat down on a
mossy spot under a spreading

oak. There was not even a zephyr stirring;
the dead noonday heat had

even stilled the songs of the birds; nature
lay in a trance that was

broken by no sound but the occasional far-off
hammering of a

woodpecker, and this seemed to render the
pervading silence and sense

of loneliness the more profound. The boy's
soul was steeped in

melancholy; his feelings were in happy accord
with his surroundings. He

sat long with his elbows on his knees and his
chin in his hands,

meditating. It seemed to him that life was
but a trouble, at best, and

he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so
lately released; it must be

very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber
and dream forever and

ever, with the wind whispering through the
trees and caressing the

grass and the flowers over the grave, and
nothing to bother and grieve

about, ever any more. If he only had a clean
Sunday-school record he

could be willing to go, and be done with it
all. Now as to this girl.

What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the
best in the world, and been

treated like a dog--like a very dog. She
would be sorry some day--maybe

when it was too late. Ah, if he could only
die TEMPORARILY!

But the elastic heart of youth cannot be
compressed into one

constrained shape long at a time. Tom
presently began to drift

insensibly back into the concerns of this
life again. What if he turned

his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously?
What if he went away--ever

so far away, into unknown countries beyond
the seas--and never came

back any more! How would she feel then! The
idea of being a clown

recurred to him now, only to fill him with
disgust. For frivolity and

jokes and spotted tights were an offense,
when they intruded themselves

upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague
august realm of the

romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and
return after long years, all

war-worn and illustrious. No--better still,
he would join the Indians,

and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in
the mountain ranges and the

trackless great plains of the Far West, and
away in the future come

back a great chief, bristling with feathers,
hideous with paint, and

prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer
morning, with a

bloodcurdling war-whoop, and sear the
eyeballs of all his companions

with unappeasable envy. But no, there was
something gaudier even than

this. He would be a pirate! That was it! NOW
his future lay plain

before him, and glowing with unimaginable
splendor. How his name would

fill the world, and make people shudder! How
gloriously he would go

plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low,
black-hulled racer, the

Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag
flying at the fore! And at

the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly
appear at the old village

and stalk into church, brown and
weather-beaten, in his black velvet

doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his
crimson sash, his belt

bristling with horse-pistols, his
crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his

slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag
unfurled, with the skull

and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling
ecstasy the whisperings,

"It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate!--the Black
Avenger of the Spanish Main!"

Yes, it was settled; his career was
determined. He would run away from

home and enter upon it. He would start the
very next morning. Therefore

he must now begin to get ready. He would
collect his resources

together. He went to a rotten log near at
hand and began to dig under

one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon
struck wood that sounded

hollow. He put his hand there and uttered
this incantation impressively:

"What hasn't come here, come! What's here,
stay here!"

Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a
pine shingle. He took it

up and disclosed a shapely little
treasure-house whose bottom and sides

were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's
astonishment was boundless!

He scratched his head with a perplexed air,
and said:

"Well, that beats anything!"

Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and
stood cogitating. The

truth was, that a superstition of his had
failed, here, which he and

all his comrades had always looked upon as
infallible. If you buried a

marble with certain necessary incantations,
and left it alone a

fortnight, and then opened the place with the
incantation he had just

used, you would find that all the marbles you
had ever lost had

gathered themselves together there, meantime,
no matter how widely they

had been separated. But now, this thing had
actually and unquestionably

failed. Tom's whole structure of faith was
shaken to its foundations.

He had many a time heard of this thing
succeeding but never of its

failing before. It did not occur to him that
he had tried it several

times before, himself, but could never find
the hiding-places

afterward. He puzzled over the matter some
time, and finally decided

that some witch had interfered and broken the
charm. He thought he

would satisfy himself on that point; so he
searched around till he

found a small sandy spot with a little
funnel-shaped depression in it.

He laid himself down and put his mouth close
to this depression and

called--

"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want
to know! Doodle-bug,

doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!"

The sand began to work, and presently a small
black bug appeared for a

second and then darted under again in a
fright.

"He dasn't tell! So it WAS a witch that done
it. I just knowed it."

He well knew the futility of trying to
contend against witches, so he

gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him
that he might as well have

the marble he had just thrown away, and
therefore he went and made a

patient search for it. But he could not find
it. Now he went back to

his treasure-house and carefully placed
himself just as he had been

standing when he tossed the marble away; then
he took another marble

from his pocket and tossed it in the same
way, saying:

"Brother, go find your brother!"

He watched where it stopped, and went there
and looked. But it must

have fallen short or gone too far; so he
tried twice more. The last

repetition was successful. The two marbles
lay within a foot of each

other.

Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came
faintly down the green

aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his
jacket and trousers, turned a

suspender into a belt, raked away some brush
behind the rotten log,

disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword
and a tin trumpet, and in

a moment had seized these things and bounded
away, barelegged, with

fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a
great elm, blew an

answering blast, and then began to tiptoe and
look warily out, this way

and that. He said cautiously--to an imaginary
company:

"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow."

Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and
elaborately armed as Tom.

Tom called:

"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest
without my pass?"

"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art
thou that--that--"

"Dares to hold such language," said Tom,
prompting--for they talked

"by the book," from memory.

"Who art thou that dares to hold such
language?"

"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff
carcase soon shall know."

"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw?
Right gladly will I dispute

with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have
at thee!"

They took their lath swords, dumped their
other traps on the ground,

struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and
began a grave, careful

combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom
said:

"Now, if you've got the hang, go it
lively!"

So they "went it lively," panting and
perspiring with the work. By and

by Tom shouted:

"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?"

"I sha'n't! Why don't you fall yourself?
You're getting the worst of

it."

"Why, that ain't anything. I can't fall; that
ain't the way it is in

the book. The book says, 'Then with one
back-handed stroke he slew poor

Guy of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and
let me hit you in the

back."

There was no getting around the authorities,
so Joe turned, received

the whack and fell.

"Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let
me kill YOU. That's fair."

"Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the
book."

"Well, it's blamed mean--that's all."

"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much
the miller's son, and

lam me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the
Sheriff of Nottingham and

you be Robin Hood a little while and kill
me."

This was satisfactory, and so these
adventures were carried out. Then

Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed
by the treacherous nun to

bleed his strength away through his neglected
wound. And at last Joe,

representing a whole tribe of weeping
outlaws, dragged him sadly forth,

gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom
said, "Where this arrow

falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the
greenwood tree." Then he

shot the arrow and fell back and would have
died, but he lit on a

nettle and sprang up too gaily for a
corpse.

The boys dressed themselves, hid their
accoutrements, and went off

grieving that there were no outlaws any more,
and wondering what modern

civilization could claim to have done to
compensate for their loss.

They said they would rather be outlaws a year
in Sherwood Forest than

President of the United States forever.

CHAPTER IX

AT half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid
were sent to bed, as usual.

They said their prayers, and Sid was soon
asleep. Tom lay awake and

waited, in restless impatience. When it
seemed to him that it must be

nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike
ten! This was despair. He

would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves
demanded, but he was

afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still,
and stared up into the dark.

Everything was dismally still. By and by, out
of the stillness, little,

scarcely preceptible noises began to
emphasize themselves. The ticking

of the clock began to bring itself into
notice. Old beams began to

crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked
faintly. Evidently spirits were

abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from
Aunt Polly's chamber. And

now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that
no human ingenuity could

locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a
deathwatch in the wall at

the bed's head made Tom shudder--it meant
that somebody's days were

numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose
on the night air, and was

answered by a fainter howl from a remoter
distance. Tom was in an

agony. At last he was satisfied that time had
ceased and eternity

begun; he began to doze, in spite of himself;
the clock chimed eleven,

but he did not hear it. And then there came,
mingling with his half-

formed dreams, a most melancholy
caterwauling. The raising of a

neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of
"Scat! you devil!" and the

crash of an empty bottle against the back of
his aunt's woodshed

brought him wide awake, and a single minute
later he was dressed and

out of the window and creeping along the roof
of the "ell" on all

fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or
twice, as he went; then jumped

to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the
ground. Huckleberry Finn

was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved
off and disappeared in the

gloom. At the end of half an hour they were
wading through the tall

grass of the graveyard.

It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned
Western kind. It was on a

hill, about a mile and a half from the
village. It had a crazy board

fence around it, which leaned inward in
places, and outward the rest of

the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass
and weeds grew rank over the

whole cemetery. All the old graves were
sunken in, there was not a

tombstone on the place; round-topped,
worm-eaten boards staggered over

the graves, leaning for support and finding
none. "Sacred to the memory

of" So-and-So had been painted on them once,
but it could no longer

have been read, on the most of them, now,
even if there had been light.

A faint wind moaned through the trees, and
Tom feared it might be the

spirits of the dead, complaining at being
disturbed. The boys talked

little, and only under their breath, for the
time and the place and the

pervading solemnity and silence oppressed
their spirits. They found the

sharp new heap they were seeking, and
ensconced themselves within the

protection of three great elms that grew in a
bunch within a few feet

of the grave.

Then they waited in silence for what seemed a
long time. The hooting

of a distant owl was all the sound that
troubled the dead stillness.

Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must
force some talk. So he said

in a whisper:

"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it
for us to be here?"

Huckleberry whispered:

"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like,
AIN'T it?"

"I bet it is."

There was a considerable pause, while the
boys canvassed this matter

inwardly. Then Tom whispered:

"Say, Hucky--do you reckon Hoss Williams hears
us talking?"

"O' course he does. Least his sperrit
does."

Tom, after a pause:

"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never
meant any harm.

Everybody calls him Hoss."

"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk
'bout these-yer dead

people, Tom."

This was a damper, and conversation died
again.

Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and
said:

"Sh!"

"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together
with beating hearts.

"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?"

"I--"

"There! Now you hear it."

"Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming,
sure. What'll we do?"

"I dono. Think they'll see us?"

"Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as
cats. I wisht I hadn't

come."

"Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll
bother us. We ain't

doing any harm. If we keep perfectly still,
maybe they won't notice us

at all."

"I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a
shiver."

"Listen!"

The boys bent their heads together and
scarcely breathed. A muffled

sound of voices floated up from the far end
of the graveyard.

"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is
it?"

"It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful."

Some vague figures approached through the
gloom, swinging an old-

fashioned tin lantern that freckled the
ground with innumerable little

spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry
whispered with a shudder:

"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em!
Lordy, Tom, we're goners!

Can you pray?"

"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't
going to hurt us. 'Now

I lay me down to sleep, I--'"

"Sh!"

"What is it, Huck?"

"They're HUMANS! One of 'em is, anyway. One of
'em's old Muff Potter's

voice."

"No--'tain't so, is it?"

"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He
ain't sharp enough to

notice us. Drunk, the same as usual,
likely--blamed old rip!"

"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're
stuck. Can't find it. Here

they come again. Now they're hot. Cold again.
Hot again. Red hot!

They're p'inted right, this time. Say, Huck,
I know another o' them

voices; it's Injun Joe."

"That's so--that murderin' half-breed! I'd
druther they was devils a

dern sight. What kin they be up to?"

The whisper died wholly out, now, for the
three men had reached the

grave and stood within a few feet of the
boys' hiding-place.

"Here it is," said the third voice; and the
owner of it held the

lantern up and revealed the face of young
Doctor Robinson.

Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a
handbarrow with a rope and a

couple of shovels on it. They cast down their
load and began to open

the grave. The doctor put the lantern at the
head of the grave and came

and sat down with his back against one of the
elm trees. He was so

close the boys could have touched him.

"Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the
moon might come out at any

moment."

They growled a response and went on digging.
For some time there was

no noise but the grating sound of the spades
discharging their freight

of mould and gravel. It was very monotonous.
Finally a spade struck

upon the coffin with a dull woody accent, and
within another minute or

two the men had hoisted it out on the ground.
They pried off the lid

with their shovels, got out the body and
dumped it rudely on the

ground. The moon drifted from behind the
clouds and exposed the pallid

face. The barrow was got ready and the corpse
placed on it, covered

with a blanket, and bound to its place with
the rope. Potter took out a

large spring-knife and cut off the dangling
end of the rope and then

said:

"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and
you'll just out with

another five, or here she stays."

"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe.

"Look here, what does this mean?" said the
doctor. "You required your

pay in advance, and I've paid you."

"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun
Joe, approaching the

doctor, who was now standing. "Five years ago
you drove me away from

your father's kitchen one night, when I come
to ask for something to

eat, and you said I warn't there for any
good; and when I swore I'd get

even with you if it took a hundred years,
your father had me jailed for

a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The
Injun blood ain't in me for

nothing. And now I've GOT you, and you got to
SETTLE, you know!"

He was threatening the doctor, with his fist
in his face, by this

time. The doctor struck out suddenly and
stretched the ruffian on the

ground. Potter dropped his knife, and
exclaimed:

"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the
next moment he had

grappled with the doctor and the two were
struggling with might and

main, trampling the grass and tearing the
ground with their heels.

Injun Joe sprang to his feet, his eyes
flaming with passion, snatched

up Potter's knife, and went creeping, catlike
and stooping, round and

round about the combatants, seeking an
opportunity. All at once the

doctor flung himself free, seized the heavy
headboard of Williams'

grave and felled Potter to the earth with
it--and in the same instant

the half-breed saw his chance and drove the
knife to the hilt in the

young man's breast. He reeled and fell partly
upon Potter, flooding him

with his blood, and in the same moment the
clouds blotted out the

dreadful spectacle and the two frightened
boys went speeding away in

the dark.

Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun
Joe was standing over

the two forms, contemplating them. The doctor
murmured inarticulately,

gave a long gasp or two and was still. The
half-breed muttered:

"THAT score is settled--damn you."

Then he robbed the body. After which he put
the fatal knife in

Potter's open right hand, and sat down on the
dismantled coffin. Three--

four--five minutes passed, and then Potter
began to stir and moan. His

hand closed upon the knife; he raised it,
glanced at it, and let it

fall, with a shudder. Then he sat up, pushing
the body from him, and

gazed at it, and then around him, confusedly.
His eyes met Joe's.

"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said.

"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without
moving.

"What did you do it for?"

"I! I never done it!"

"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash."

Potter trembled and grew white.

"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to
drink to-night. But it's

in my head yet--worse'n when we started here.
I'm all in a muddle;

can't recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell
me, Joe--HONEST, now, old

feller--did I do it? Joe, I never meant
to--'pon my soul and honor, I

never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe.
Oh, it's awful--and him

so young and promising."

"Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched
you one with the headboard

and you fell flat; and then up you come, all
reeling and staggering

like, and snatched the knife and jammed it
into him, just as he fetched

you another awful clip--and here you've laid,
as dead as a wedge til

now."

"Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish
I may die this minute if

I did. It was all on account of the whiskey
and the excitement, I

reckon. I never used a weepon in my life
before, Joe. I've fought, but

never with weepons. They'll all say that.
Joe, don't tell! Say you

won't tell, Joe--that's a good feller. I
always liked you, Joe, and

stood up for you, too. Don't you remember?
You WON'T tell, WILL you,

Joe?" And the poor creature dropped on his
knees before the stolid

murderer, and clasped his appealing
hands.

"No, you've always been fair and square with
me, Muff Potter, and I

won't go back on you. There, now, that's as
fair as a man can say."

"Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for
this the longest day I

live." And Potter began to cry.

"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't
any time for blubbering.

You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move,
now, and don't leave any

tracks behind you."

Potter started on a trot that quickly
increased to a run. The half-

breed stood looking after him. He
muttered:

"If he's as much stunned with the lick and
fuddled with the rum as he

had the look of being, he won't think of the
knife till he's gone so

far he'll be afraid to come back after it to
such a place by himself--

chicken-heart!"

Two or three minutes later the murdered man,
the blanketed corpse, the

lidless coffin, and the open grave were under
no inspection but the

moon's. The stillness was complete again,
too.

CHAPTER X

THE two boys flew on and on, toward the
village, speechless with

horror. They glanced backward over their
shoulders from time to time,

apprehensively, as if they feared they might
be followed. Every stump

that started up in their path seemed a man
and an enemy, and made them

catch their breath; and as they sped by some
outlying cottages that lay

near the village, the barking of the aroused
watch-dogs seemed to give

wings to their feet.

"If we can only get to the old tannery before
we break down!"

whispered Tom, in short catches between
breaths. "I can't stand it much

longer."

Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only
reply, and the boys fixed

their eyes on the goal of their hopes and
bent to their work to win it.

They gained steadily on it, and at last,
breast to breast, they burst

through the open door and fell grateful and
exhausted in the sheltering

shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed
down, and Tom whispered:

"Huckleberry, what do you reckon'll come of
this?"

"If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging'll
come of it."

"Do you though?"

"Why, I KNOW it, Tom."

Tom thought a while, then he said:

"Who'll tell? We?"

"What are you talking about? S'pose something
happened and Injun Joe

DIDN'T hang? Why, he'd kill us some time or
other, just as dead sure as

we're a laying here."

"That's just what I was thinking to myself,
Huck."

"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if
he's fool enough. He's

generally drunk enough."

Tom said nothing--went on thinking. Presently
he whispered:

"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he
tell?"

"What's the reason he don't know it?"

"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun
Joe done it. D'you reckon

he could see anything? D'you reckon he knowed
anything?"

"By hokey, that's so, Tom!"

"And besides, look-a-here--maybe that whack
done for HIM!"

"No, 'taint likely, Tom. He had liquor in him;
I could see that; and

besides, he always has. Well, when pap's
full, you might take and belt

him over the head with a church and you
couldn't phase him. He says so,

his own self. So it's the same with Muff
Potter, of course. But if a

man was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack
might fetch him; I dono."

After another reflective silence, Tom
said:

"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?"

"Tom, we GOT to keep mum. You know that. That
Injun devil wouldn't

make any more of drownding us than a couple
of cats, if we was to

squeak 'bout this and they didn't hang him.
Now, look-a-here, Tom, less

take and swear to one another--that's what we
got to do--swear to keep

mum."

"I'm agreed. It's the best thing. Would you
just hold hands and swear

that we--"

"Oh no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good
enough for little

rubbishy common things--specially with gals,
cuz THEY go back on you

anyway, and blab if they get in a huff--but
there orter be writing

'bout a big thing like this. And blood."

Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was
deep, and dark, and

awful; the hour, the circumstances, the
surroundings, were in keeping

with it. He picked up a clean pine shingle
that lay in the moonlight,

took a little fragment of "red keel" out of
his pocket, got the moon on

his work, and painfully scrawled these lines,
emphasizing each slow

down-stroke by clamping his tongue between
his teeth, and letting up

the pressure on the up-strokes. [See next
page.]

"Huck Finn and

Tom Sawyer swears

they will keep mum

about This and They

wish They may Drop

down dead in Their

Tracks if They ever

Tell and Rot."

Huckleberry was filled with admiration of
Tom's facility in writing,

and the sublimity of his language. He at once
took a pin from his lapel

and was going to prick his flesh, but Tom
said:

"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It
might have verdigrease on

it."

"What's verdigrease?"

"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just
swaller some of it once--

you'll see."

So Tom unwound the thread from one of his
needles, and each boy

pricked the ball of his thumb and squeezed
out a drop of blood. In

time, after many squeezes, Tom managed to
sign his initials, using the

ball of his little finger for a pen. Then he
showed Huckleberry how to

make an H and an F, and the oath was
complete. They buried the shingle

close to the wall, with some dismal
ceremonies and incantations, and

the fetters that bound their tongues were
considered to be locked and

the key thrown away.

A figure crept stealthily through a break in
the other end of the

ruined building, now, but they did not notice
it.

"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep
us from EVER telling--

ALWAYS?"

"Of course it does. It don't make any
difference WHAT happens, we got

to keep mum. We'd drop down dead--don't YOU
know that?"

"Yes, I reckon that's so."

They continued to whisper for some little
time. Presently a dog set up

a long, lugubrious howl just outside--within
ten feet of them. The boys

clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of
fright.

"Which of us does he mean?" gasped
Huckleberry.

"I dono--peep through the crack. Quick!"

"No, YOU, Tom!"

"I can't--I can't DO it, Huck!"

"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!"

"Oh, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I
know his voice. It's Bull

Harbison." *

[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom
would have spoken of

him as "Harbison's Bull," but a son or a dog
of that name was "Bull

Harbison."]

"Oh, that's good--I tell you, Tom, I was most
scared to death; I'd a

bet anything it was a STRAY dog."

The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank
once more.

"Oh, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!"
whispered Huckleberry. "DO, Tom!"

Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his
eye to the crack. His

whisper was hardly audible when he said:

"Oh, Huck, IT S A STRAY DOG!"

"Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?"

"Huck, he must mean us both--we're right
together."

"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon
there ain't no mistake 'bout

where I'LL go to. I been so wicked."

"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey
and doing everything a

feller's told NOT to do. I might a been good,
like Sid, if I'd a tried--

but no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I
get off this time, I lay

I'll just WALLER in Sunday-schools!" And Tom
began to snuffle a little.

"YOU bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle
too. "Consound it, Tom

Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o'
what I am. Oh, LORDY, lordy,

lordy, I wisht I only had half your
chance."

Tom choked off and whispered:

"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his BACK to
us!"

Hucky looked, with joy in his heart.

"Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?"

"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never
thought. Oh, this is bully,

you know. NOW who can he mean?"

The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his
ears.

"Sh! What's that?" he whispered.

"Sounds like--like hogs grunting. No--it's
somebody snoring, Tom."

"That IS it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?"

"I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so,
anyway. Pap used to

sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs,
but laws bless you, he

just lifts things when HE snores. Besides, I
reckon he ain't ever

coming back to this town any more."

The spirit of adventure rose in the boys'
souls once more.

"Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?"

"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun
Joe!"

Tom quailed. But presently the temptation
rose up strong again and the

boys agreed to try, with the understanding
that they would take to

their heels if the snoring stopped. So they
went tiptoeing stealthily

down, the one behind the other. When they had
got to within five steps

of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it
broke with a sharp snap.

The man moaned, writhed a little, and his
face came into the moonlight.

It was Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had
stood still, and their hopes

too, when the man moved, but their fears
passed away now. They tiptoed

out, through the broken weather-boarding, and
stopped at a little

distance to exchange a parting word. That
long, lugubrious howl rose on

the night air again! They turned and saw the
strange dog standing

within a few feet of where Potter was lying,
and FACING Potter, with

his nose pointing heavenward.

"Oh, geeminy, it's HIM!" exclaimed both boys,
in a breath.

"Say, Tom--they say a stray dog come howling
around Johnny Miller's

house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks
ago; and a whippoorwill

come in and lit on the banisters and sung,
the very same evening; and

there ain't anybody dead there yet."

"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't.
Didn't Gracie Miller fall

in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible
the very next Saturday?"

"Yes, but she ain't DEAD. And what's more,
she's getting better, too."

"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner,
just as dead sure as Muff

Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers
say, and they know all about

these kind of things, Huck."

Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom
crept in at his bedroom

window the night was almost spent. He
undressed with excessive caution,

and fell asleep congratulating himself that
nobody knew of his

escapade. He was not aware that the
gently-snoring Sid was awake, and

had been so for an hour.

When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone.
There was a late look in the

light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was
startled. Why had he not

been called--persecuted till he was up, as
usual? The thought filled

him with bodings. Within five minutes he was
dressed and down-stairs,

feeling sore and drowsy. The family were
still at table, but they had

finished breakfast. There was no voice of
rebuke; but there were

averted eyes; there was a silence and an air
of solemnity that struck a

chill to the culprit's heart. He sat down and
tried to seem gay, but it

was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no
response, and he lapsed into

silence and let his heart sink down to the
depths.

After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and
Tom almost brightened in

the hope that he was going to be flogged; but
it was not so. His aunt

wept over him and asked him how he could go
and break her old heart so;

and finally told him to go on, and ruin
himself and bring her gray

hairs with sorrow to the grave, for it was no
use for her to try any

more. This was worse than a thousand
whippings, and Tom's heart was

sorer now than his body. He cried, he pleaded
for forgiveness, promised

to reform over and over again, and then
received his dismissal, feeling

that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness
and established but a

feeble confidence.

He left the presence too miserable to even
feel revengeful toward Sid;

and so the latter's prompt retreat through
the back gate was

unnecessary. He moped to school gloomy and
sad, and took his flogging,

along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the
day before, with the air

of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes
and wholly dead to

trifles. Then he betook himself to his seat,
rested his elbows on his

desk and his jaws in his hands, and stared at
the wall with the stony

stare of suffering that has reached the limit
and can no further go.

His elbow was pressing against some hard
substance. After a long time

he slowly and sadly changed his position, and
took up this object with

a sigh. It was in a paper. He unrolled it. A
long, lingering, colossal

sigh followed, and his heart broke. It was
his brass andiron knob!

This final feather broke the camel's
back.

CHAPTER XI

CLOSE upon the hour of noon the whole village
was suddenly electrified

with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet
undreamed-of telegraph;

the tale flew from man to man, from group to
group, from house to

house, with little less than telegraphic
speed. Of course the

schoolmaster gave holiday for that afternoon;
the town would have

thought strangely of him if he had not.

A gory knife had been found close to the
murdered man, and it had been

recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff
Potter--so the story ran.

And it was said that a belated citizen had
come upon Potter washing

himself in the "branch" about one or two
o'clock in the morning, and

that Potter had at once sneaked
off--suspicious circumstances,

especially the washing which was not a habit
with Potter. It was also

said that the town had been ransacked for
this "murderer" (the public

are not slow in the matter of sifting
evidence and arriving at a

verdict), but that he could not be found.
Horsemen had departed down

all the roads in every direction, and the
Sheriff "was confident" that

he would be captured before night.

All the town was drifting toward the
graveyard. Tom's heartbreak

vanished and he joined the procession, not
because he would not a

thousand times rather go anywhere else, but
because an awful,

unaccountable fascination drew him on.
Arrived at the dreadful place,

he wormed his small body through the crowd
and saw the dismal

spectacle. It seemed to him an age since he
was there before. Somebody

pinched his arm. He turned, and his eyes met
Huckleberry's. Then both

looked elsewhere at once, and wondered if
anybody had noticed anything

in their mutual glance. But everybody was
talking, and intent upon the

grisly spectacle before them.

"Poor fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This
ought to be a lesson to

grave robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this
if they catch him!" This

was the drift of remark; and the minister
said, "It was a judgment; His

hand is here."

Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his
eye fell upon the stolid

face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd
began to sway and struggle,

and voices shouted, "It's him! it's him! he's
coming himself!"

"Who? Who?" from twenty voices.

"Muff Potter!"

"Hallo, he's stopped!--Look out, he's turning!
Don't let him get away!"

People in the branches of the trees over
Tom's head said he wasn't

trying to get away--he only looked doubtful
and perplexed.

"Infernal impudence!" said a bystander;
"wanted to come and take a

quiet look at his work, I reckon--didn't
expect any company."

The crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff
came through,

ostentatiously leading Potter by the arm. The
poor fellow's face was

haggard, and his eyes showed the fear that
was upon him. When he stood

before the murdered man, he shook as with a
palsy, and he put his face

in his hands and burst into tears.

"I didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my
word and honor I never

done it."

"Who's accused you?" shouted a voice.

This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted
his face and looked

around him with a pathetic hopelessness in
his eyes. He saw Injun Joe,

and exclaimed:

"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd
never--"

"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before
him by the Sheriff.

Potter would have fallen if they had not
caught him and eased him to

the ground. Then he said:

"Something told me 't if I didn't come back
and get--" He shuddered;

then waved his nerveless hand with a
vanquished gesture and said, "Tell

'em, Joe, tell 'em--it ain't any use any
more."

Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and
staring, and heard the stony-

hearted liar reel off his serene statement,
they expecting every moment

that the clear sky would deliver God's
lightnings upon his head, and

wondering to see how long the stroke was
delayed. And when he had

finished and still stood alive and whole,
their wavering impulse to

break their oath and save the poor betrayed
prisoner's life faded and

vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had
sold himself to Satan and

it would be fatal to meddle with the property
of such a power as that.

"Why didn't you leave? What did you want to
come here for?" somebody

said.

"I couldn't help it--I couldn't help it,"
Potter moaned. "I wanted to

run away, but I couldn't seem to come
anywhere but here." And he fell

to sobbing again.

Injun Joe repeated his statement, just as
calmly, a few minutes

afterward on the inquest, under oath; and the
boys, seeing that the

lightnings were still withheld, were
confirmed in their belief that Joe

had sold himself to the devil. He was now
become, to them, the most

balefully interesting object they had ever
looked upon, and they could

not take their fascinated eyes from his
face.

They inwardly resolved to watch him nights,
when opportunity should

offer, in the hope of getting a glimpse of
his dread master.

Injun Joe helped to raise the body of the
murdered man and put it in a

wagon for removal; and it was whispered
through the shuddering crowd

that the wound bled a little! The boys
thought that this happy

circumstance would turn suspicion in the
right direction; but they were

disappointed, for more than one villager
remarked:

"It was within three feet of Muff Potter when
it done it."

Tom's fearful secret and gnawing conscience
disturbed his sleep for as

much as a week after this; and at breakfast
one morning Sid said:

"Tom, you pitch around and talk in your sleep
so much that you keep me

awake half the time."

Tom blanched and dropped his eyes.

"It's a bad sign," said Aunt Polly, gravely.
"What you got on your

mind, Tom?"

"Nothing. Nothing 't I know of." But the boy's
hand shook so that he

spilled his coffee.

"And you do talk such stuff," Sid said. "Last
night you said, 'It's

blood, it's blood, that's what it is!' You
said that over and over. And

you said, 'Don't torment me so--I'll tell!'
Tell WHAT? What is it

you'll tell?"

Everything was swimming before Tom. There is
no telling what might

have happened, now, but luckily the concern
passed out of Aunt Polly's

face and she came to Tom's relief without
knowing it. She said:

"Sho! It's that dreadful murder. I dream about
it most every night

myself. Sometimes I dream it's me that done
it."

Mary said she had been affected much the same
way. Sid seemed

satisfied. Tom got out of the presence as
quick as he plausibly could,

and after that he complained of toothache for
a week, and tied up his

jaws every night. He never knew that Sid lay
nightly watching, and

frequently slipped the bandage free and then
leaned on his elbow

listening a good while at a time, and
afterward slipped the bandage

back to its place again. Tom's distress of
mind wore off gradually and

the toothache grew irksome and was discarded.
If Sid really managed to

make anything out of Tom's disjointed
mutterings, he kept it to himself.

It seemed to Tom that his schoolmates never
would get done holding

inquests on dead cats, and thus keeping his
trouble present to his

mind. Sid noticed that Tom never was coroner
at one of these inquiries,

though it had been his habit to take the lead
in all new enterprises;

he noticed, too, that Tom never acted as a
witness--and that was

strange; and Sid did not overlook the fact
that Tom even showed a

marked aversion to these inquests, and always
avoided them when he

could. Sid marvelled, but said nothing.
However, even inquests went out

of vogue at last, and ceased to torture Tom's
conscience.

Every day or two, during this time of sorrow,
Tom watched his

opportunity and went to the little grated
jail-window and smuggled such

small comforts through to the "murderer" as
he could get hold of. The

jail was a trifling little brick den that
stood in a marsh at the edge

of the village, and no guards were afforded
for it; indeed, it was

seldom occupied. These offerings greatly
helped to ease Tom's

conscience.

The villagers had a strong desire to
tar-and-feather Injun Joe and

ride him on a rail, for body-snatching, but
so formidable was his

character that nobody could be found who was
willing to take the lead

in the matter, so it was dropped. He had been
careful to begin both of

his inquest-statements with the fight,
without confessing the grave-

robbery that preceded it; therefore it was
deemed wisest not to try the

case in the courts at present.

CHAPTER XII

ONE of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted
away from its secret

troubles was, that it had found a new and
weighty matter to interest

itself about. Becky Thatcher had stopped
coming to school. Tom had

struggled with his pride a few days, and
tried to "whistle her down the

wind," but failed. He began to find himself
hanging around her father's

house, nights, and feeling very miserable.
She was ill. What if she

should die! There was distraction in the
thought. He no longer took an

interest in war, nor even in piracy. The
charm of life was gone; there

was nothing but dreariness left. He put his
hoop away, and his bat;

there was no joy in them any more. His aunt
was concerned. She began to

try all manner of remedies on him. She was
one of those people who are

infatuated with patent medicines and all
new-fangled methods of

producing health or mending it. She was an
inveterate experimenter in

these things. When something fresh in this
line came out she was in a

fever, right away, to try it; not on herself,
for she was never ailing,

but on anybody else that came handy. She was
a subscriber for all the

"Health" periodicals and phrenological frauds;
and the solemn ignorance

they were inflated with was breath to her
nostrils. All the "rot" they

contained about ventilation, and how to go to
bed, and how to get up,

and what to eat, and what to drink, and how
much exercise to take, and

what frame of mind to keep one's self in, and
what sort of clothing to

wear, was all gospel to her, and she never
observed that her health-

journals of the current month customarily
upset everything they had

recommended the month before. She was as
simple-hearted and honest as

the day was long, and so she was an easy
victim. She gathered together

her quack periodicals and her quack
medicines, and thus armed with

death, went about on her pale horse,
metaphorically speaking, with

"hell following after." But she never
suspected that she was not an

angel of healing and the balm of Gilead in
disguise, to the suffering

neighbors.

The water treatment was new, now, and Tom's
low condition was a

windfall to her. She had him out at daylight
every morning, stood him

up in the woodshed and drowned him with a
deluge of cold water; then

she scrubbed him down with a towel like a
file, and so brought him to;

then she rolled him up in a wet sheet and put
him away under blankets

till she sweated his soul clean and "the
yellow stains of it came

through his pores"--as Tom said.

Yet notwithstanding all this, the boy grew
more and more melancholy

and pale and dejected. She added hot baths,
sitz baths, shower baths,

and plunges. The boy remained as dismal as a
hearse. She began to

assist the water with a slim oatmeal diet and
blister-plasters. She

calculated his capacity as she would a jug's,
and filled him up every

day with quack cure-alls.

Tom had become indifferent to persecution by
this time. This phase

filled the old lady's heart with
consternation. This indifference must

be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of
Pain-killer for the first

time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted
it and was filled with

gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid
form. She dropped the water

treatment and everything else, and pinned her
faith to Pain-killer. She

gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with the
deepest anxiety for the

result. Her troubles were instantly at rest,
her soul at peace again;

for the "indifference" was broken up. The boy
could not have shown a

wilder, heartier interest, if she had built a
fire under him.

Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this
sort of life might be

romantic enough, in his blighted condition,
but it was getting to have

too little sentiment and too much distracting
variety about it. So he

thought over various plans for relief, and
finally hit pon that of

professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He
asked for it so often that he

became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by
telling him to help himself

and quit bothering her. If it had been Sid,
she would have had no

misgivings to alloy her delight; but since it
was Tom, she watched the

bottle clandestinely. She found that the
medicine did really diminish,

but it did not occur to her that the boy was
mending the health of a

crack in the sitting-room floor with it.

One day Tom was in the act of dosing the
crack when his aunt's yellow

cat came along, purring, eying the teaspoon
avariciously, and begging

for a taste. Tom said:

"Don't ask for it unless you want it,
Peter."

But Peter signified that he did want it.

"You better make sure."

Peter was sure.

"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to
you, because there ain't

anything mean about me; but if you find you
don't like it, you mustn't

blame anybody but your own self."

Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth
open and poured down the

Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards
in the air, and then

delivered a war-whoop and set off round and
round the room, banging

against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and
making general havoc.

Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced
around, in a frenzy of

enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder
and his voice proclaiming

his unappeasable happiness. Then he went
tearing around the house again

spreading chaos and destruction in his path.
Aunt Polly entered in time

to see him throw a few double summersets,
deliver a final mighty

hurrah, and sail through the open window,
carrying the rest of the

flower-pots with him. The old lady stood
petrified with astonishment,

peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the
floor expiring with laughter.

"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?"

"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy.

"Why, I never see anything like it. What did
make him act so?"

"Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly; cats always
act so when they're having

a good time."

"They do, do they?" There was something in the
tone that made Tom

apprehensive.

"Yes'm. That is, I believe they do."

"You DO?"

"Yes'm."

The old lady was bending down, Tom watching,
with interest emphasized

by anxiety. Too late he divined her "drift."
The handle of the telltale

teaspoon was visible under the bed-valance.
Aunt Polly took it, held it

up. Tom winced, and dropped his eyes. Aunt
Polly raised him by the

usual handle--his ear--and cracked his head
soundly with her thimble.

"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that
poor dumb beast so, for?"

"I done it out of pity for him--because he
hadn't any aunt."

"Hadn't any aunt!--you numskull. What has that
got to do with it?"

"Heaps. Because if he'd had one she'd a burnt
him out herself! She'd a

roasted his bowels out of him 'thout any more
feeling than if he was a

human!"

Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse.
This was putting the thing

in a new light; what was cruelty to a cat
MIGHT be cruelty to a boy,

too. She began to soften; she felt sorry. Her
eyes watered a little,

and she put her hand on Tom's head and said
g

Project
of concordancer :

Finding
the word ( marry). In the story of Tom Sawyer.

1      ut you--and you
ain't to ever marry
anybody but me, either."
"Cer

2      but me, and you
ain't ever to marry
anybody but me, ever never and

3       but you,
Tom, and I'll never marry
anybody but you--and you ain't