The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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 look- ing
out for him by this time? But old fools is the big- gest
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, some- how. 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,
trouble- some 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 con- template 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.
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 look- ing
out for him by this time? But old fools is the big- gest
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, some- how. 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,
trouble- some 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 con- template 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.
