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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete

by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

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Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #74]

[Last updated: May 3, 2011]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SAWYER ***

Produced by David Widger. The previous edition was updated by Jose

Menendez.

                   THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

                                BY

                            MARK TWAIN

                     (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

                           P R E F A C E

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

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

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

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

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

architecture.

The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children

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

thirty or forty years ago.

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

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

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

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

and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.

                                                            THE AUTHOR.

HARTFORD, 1876.

                          T O M   S A W Y E R

CHAPTER I

"TOM!"

No answer.

"TOM!"

No answer.

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

No answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

still loud enough for the furniture to hear:

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

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

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

punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.

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

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

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

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

shouted:

"Y-o-u-u TOM!"

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

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

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

there?"

"Nothing."

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

truck?"

"I don't know, aunt."

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

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

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

"My! Look behind you, aunt!"

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

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

disappeared over it.

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

laugh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

quiet boy, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.

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

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

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

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

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

loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low

cunning. Said she:

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

"Yes'm."

"Powerful warm, warn't it?"

"Yes'm."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

inspiration:

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

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

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

shirt collar was securely sewed.

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

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

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

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

had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.

But Sidney said:

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

but it's black."

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

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

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

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

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

carried white thread and the other black. He said:

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

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

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

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

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

well though--and loathed him.

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

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

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

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

misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the boy, not the astronomer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the time. Finally Tom said:

"I can lick you!"

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

"Well, I can do it."

"No you can't, either."

"Yes I can."

"No you can't."

"I can."

"You can't."

"Can!"

"Can't!"

An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:

"What's your name?"

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

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

"Well why don't you?"

"If you say much, I will."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You're a liar!"

"You're another."

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

"Aw--take a walk!"

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

rock off'n your head."

"Oh, of COURSE you will."

"Well I WILL."

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

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

"I AIN'T afraid."

"You are."

"I ain't."

"You are."

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

they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:

"Get away from here!"

"Go away yourself!"

"I won't."

"I won't either."

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

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

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

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

and Tom said:

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

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

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

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

[Both brothers were imaginary.]

"That's a lie."

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

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

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

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

The new boy stepped over promptly, and said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and said:

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

time."

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

snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in

its firmness.

CHAPTER II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed

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

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

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

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

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

waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling,

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

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

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

him. Tom said:

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

Jim shook his head and said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

ever know."

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

me. 'Deed she would."

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

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

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

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

Jim began to waver.

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

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

'fraid ole missis--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

great, magnificent inspiration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious

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

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

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

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

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

drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

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

stiffened down his sides.

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

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

representing a forty-foot wheel.

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

The left hand began to describe circles.

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

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

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

Come--out with your spring-line--what're you about there! Take a turn

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

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

(trying the gauge-cocks).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

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

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

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

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:

"What do you call work?"

"Why, ain't THAT work?"

Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:

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

Sawyer."

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

The brush continued to move.

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

a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"

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

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

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

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

absorbed. Presently he said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

let YOU, if you was me, Tom."

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

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

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

fence and anything was to happen to it--"

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

you the core of my apple."

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

"I'll give you ALL of it!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to

report.

CHAPTER III

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

window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom,

breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer

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

of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her knitting

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

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

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

place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: "Mayn't

I go and play now, aunt?"

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

"It's all done, aunt."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

doughnut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

black thread and getting him into trouble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through

aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and

hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged,

the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the

necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and

marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

before she disappeared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

much posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.

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

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

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

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

home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

that sugar if I warn't watching you."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

out:

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

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

when she got her tongue again, she only said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

at the other.

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

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

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

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

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

undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

rose up sighing and departed in the darkness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

death-damps from his brow, no loving face to bend pityingly over him

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

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

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

young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?

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

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

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

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

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

fence and shot away in the gloom.

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

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

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

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

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

mental note of the omission.

CHAPTER IV

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

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

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

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

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

of the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the fog:

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

"Poor"--

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

"In spirit--"

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

"THEIRS--"

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

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

"Sh--"

"For they--a--"

"S, H, A--"

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

"SHALL!"

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

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

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

want to be so mean for?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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