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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 sleighrunners-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.
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' BLOOD-y 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.
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 spunkwater."
"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 spunkwater 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
spunkwater. 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 school-house. 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.
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
(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 sleighrunners-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.
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' BLOOD-y 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.
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 spunkwater."
"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 spunkwater 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
spunkwater. 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 school-house. 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.
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