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01 - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain · Adventure Books Collection

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To my wife. This book is affectionately dedicated preface. Most of the adventures
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recorded in this book really occurred. One or two were experiences of my own,
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the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is
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drawn from life Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual. He is
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a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs
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to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent
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among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story, that
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is to say, thirty or forty years ago. Although my book is intended
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mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be
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shunned by men and women on that account. For part of my plan has
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been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and
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of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes
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engaged in. The author Hartford, eighteen seventy six, Chapter one, Tom
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no answer, Tom, no answer? What's gone with that boy? I
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wonder you? Tom no answer. The old lady pulled her spectacles down and
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looked over them about the room. Then she put them up and looked out
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under them. She seldom or never looked through them, for so small a
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thing as a boy. They were her state pair, the pride of her
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heart, and were built for style, not service. She could have seen
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through a pair of stove lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a
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moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the
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furniture to hear. Well, I lay if I get hold of you,
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I'll She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and
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punching under the bed with a broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate
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the punches with She resurrected nothing but the cat. I never see the beat
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of that boy. She went to the open door and stood in it and
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looked out among the tomato vines and Jimpson weeds that constituted the garden. No
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Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance,
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and shouted, you tom. There was a slight noise behind her, and
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she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his
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roundabout and arrest his flight. There I might have thought of that closet.
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What you been doing in there? Nothing? Nothing? Look at your hands
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and look at your mouth. What is that truck? I don't know,
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Aunt, well, I know it's jam. That's what it is. Forty
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times I've said, if you didn't let that jam alone, I'll skin you.
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Hand me that switch. The switch hovered in the air. The peril
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was desperate. My look behind you want the old lady whirled round and snatched
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her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up
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the high board fence and disappeared over it. His aunt Polly stood surprised a
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moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh. Hang that boy, can't
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I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me
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to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the
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biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the
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saying is, But my goodness, he never plays them alike. Two days
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and how is a body to know what's comin'? He peers to know just
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how long he can torment me before I get my dander up. And he
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knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute, or
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make me laugh. It's all down again, and I can't hit him a
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lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy. An that's the Lord's
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truth. Goodness knows. Spare the rod an, smile the child, as
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the good book says. I'm a layin' up sin an sufferin a for us
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boat. I know he's full of the old scratch, but laws of me,
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he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got
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the heart to lash him. Somehow, every time I let him off,
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my conscience does hurt me so and every time I hit him, my old
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heart most breaks. Well. Well, a man that is born of a
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woman is a few days and full of trouble, as the scripture says,
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and I reckon it. So he'll play hooky this evening. That's Southwestern for
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afternoon, and I'll just be obleeged to make him work tomorrow to punish him.
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It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays when all the boys is having
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holiday. But he hates work more than he hates anything else. And I've
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got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination
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of the child. Tom did play hooky, and he had a very good
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time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim. The small
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colored boy saw next day's wood and split the kindling before supper. At least
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he there in time to tell his adventures to Jim. While Jim did three
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fourths of the work, Tom's younger brother, or rather half brother, Sid
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was already through with his part of the work, picking up chips, for
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he was a quiet boy and had no adventurous troublesome ways. While Tom was
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eating his supper and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions
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that were full of guile and very deep, for she wanted to trap him
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into damaging revealments. Like many other simple hearted souls. It was her pet
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vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy,
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and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning,
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said she Tom, it was middling warm in school, wasn't it? Yes?
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Un? Powerful warm, wasn't it yes? Un? Didn't you want
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to go in a swimming Tom? A bit of a scare shot through Tom
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a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt polly face, but it told
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him nothing, so he said, known, well, not very much.
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The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt and said, but
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you ain't too warm now though, And it flattered her to reflect that she
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had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she
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had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew where the
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wind lay now, so he forestalled what might be the next move. Some
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of us pumped on our heads. Mine's damp. Yet see, Aunt Polly
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was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence and missed a
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trick. Then she had a new inspiration. Tom, you didn't have to
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undo your shirt collar where I sewed it to pump on your head? Did
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you unbutton your jacket? The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened
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his jacket, his shirt collar was securely sewed. Bother, Well, go
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along with you. I'd made sure you'd played cooky and been a swimmin'.
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But I forgive you, Tom, I reckon you're a kind of singed cat.
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As the saying is better'n you look this time, she was half sorry
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her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct
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for once. But Sydney said, well, now, if I didn't think
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you sewed his collar with white thread, but it's black, why I did
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sow it with white? Tom? But Tom did not wait for the rest.
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As he went out the door, he said, Siddy, I'll lick
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you for that. In a safe place, Tom examined two large needles which
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were thrust into the lapels of his jacket and had thread bound about them.
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One needle carried white thread and the other black. He said, she'd never
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noticed if it hadn't been for Sid confound it. Sometimes she sows it with
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white, and sometimes she sows it with black. I wish to Jimminy she'd
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stick to one or t'other. I can't keep the run of em. But
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I bet I'll learn Sid for that, I'll learn him. He was not
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the model boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well,
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though, and loathed him. Within two minutes or even less, he had
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forgotten all his troubles, not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and
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bitter to him than a man's are to a man. But because a new
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and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the
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time, just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises.
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This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired
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from a negro, and he was suffering to practice it undisturbed. It consisted
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in a peculiar bird like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by
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touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst
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of the music. The reader probably remembers how to do it if he has
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ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it,
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and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony, in
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his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has
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discovered a new planet. No doubt, as far as strong, deep,
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unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with a boy, not the astronomer.
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The summer evenings were long, it was not dark, yet presently Tom
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checked his whistle a stranger was before him a boy, a shade larger than
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himself, A newcomer of any age or either sex, was an impressive curiosity
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in the poor, little shabby village of Saint Petersburg. This boy was well
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dressed, too well dressed on a week day. This was simply astounding.
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His cap was a dainty thing. His close buttoned blue cloth round about was
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new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes on,
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and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit
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of ribbon. He had a cidified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals.
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The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up
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his nose at his finery, and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed
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to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other
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moved, but only sidewise in a circle. They kept face to face and
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eye to eye all the time. Finally, Tom said, I can lick
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you. I'd like to see you try it. Well, I can't do
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it. No you can't either, Yes I can, No, you can't,
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I can you can't, can can't. An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom
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said, what's your name? Tisn't any of your business? Maybe? Well
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I llow, I'll make it my business. Well, why don't you?
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If you say much, I will much much much they are now? Oh,
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you think you're mighty smart, don't you. I could lick you with
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one hand tied behind me if I wanted to. Well, why don't you
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do it? You say you can do it? Well I will if you
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fool with me. Oh yes, I've seen whole families in the same fix.
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Smarty, You think your sum now don't you? Oh what a hat?
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You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you
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to knock it off. And anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs.
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You're a liar, You're another You're a fighting liar and doesn't take it up.
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Dah take a walk. Say if you give me much more of your
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sass, I'll take and bounce a rock off in your head. Oh of
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course you will, Well I will. Well, why don't you do it?
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Then? Why do you keep saying you will? For why don't you
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do it? It's because you're afraid. I ain't afraid you are. I
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ain't you are. Another pause, and more eyeing and sidling around each other.
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Presently they were shouldered to shoulder. Tom said, get away from me,
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go away yourself. I won't. I won't either. So they stood,
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each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both
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shoving with might and main and glowering at each other with hate. But neither
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could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each
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relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said, you're a coward and
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a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash
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you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it too. What
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do I care for your big brother. I've got a brother that's bigger than
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he is, and what's more, he can throw him over that fence too.
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Both brothers were imaginary. That's a lie, yours saying so doesn't make
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it. So Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe and
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said, I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till
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you can't stand up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep. The
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new boy stepped over promptly and said Now you said you'd do it. Now,
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let's see you do it. Don't you crowd me? Now you'd better
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look out. Well, you said you'd do it, Why don't you do
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it? By jingo for two cents, I will do it. The new
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boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out with derision.
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Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant, both boys were
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rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats, and for the
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space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other's hair and clothes,
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punched and scratched each other's noses, and covered themselves with dust and glory.
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Presently, the confusion took form, and through the fog of battle, Tom
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appeared, seated astride the new boy and pounding him with his fists. Holler
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enough, said he The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying
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mainly from rage. Holler nuf, and the pounding went on. At last,
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the stranger got out a smothered nuff, and Tom let him up and
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said, now that'll learn. You better look out who you're fooling with next
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time. The new boy went off, brushing the dust from his clothes,
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sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and threatening what
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he would do to Tom the next time he caught him out, to which
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Tom responded with jeers and started off in a high feather, And as soon
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as his back was turned, the new boy snatched up a stone through it
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and hid him between the shoulders, and then turned tail and ran like an
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antelope. Tom chased the trader home and thus found out where he lived.
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He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy
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to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the window
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and declined. At last, the enemy's mother appeared and called Tom a bad,
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vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away,
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but he said he lowed to lay for that boy. He got home
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pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window,
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he uncovered an ambuscade in the person of his aunt, and when she saw
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the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity
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at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness. Chapter two, The Glorious Whitewasher.
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Saturday morning was come and all the summer world was bright and fresh and
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brimming with life. There was a song in every heart, and if the
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heart was young, and the music issued at the lips, there was cheer
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in every face, and a spring in every step. The locust trees were
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in bloom, and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill,
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beyond the village and above it was green with vegetation, and it lay
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just far enough away to seem a delectable land, dreamy, reposeful, and
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inviting. Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long
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handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him, and
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a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine
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feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, an existence, but a burden.
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Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank,
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repeated the operation, did it again, compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with a
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far reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree box.
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Discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail and singing
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gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's
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eyes before, but now it did not strike him. So he remembered that
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there was company at the pump, White, Mulatto and Negro boys and girls
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were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarreling, fighting,
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skylarking, And he remembered that although the pump was only one hundred and
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fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an
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hour, and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said,
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say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some Jim shook
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his head and said, can't. Mars Tom. Old missus, she told
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me I got to go and get this water and stop fooling around with anybody.
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She say. She spect Mars Tom going to axe me to whitewash,
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and so she told me to go long and tend to my own business.
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She allowed, she'd tend to whitewashing. Oh, never mind what she said,
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Jim, that's the way she all talks. Give me the bucket.
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I won't be gone only a minute. She won't ever know, oh I
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dazzen' mars Tom, Oh missus, she'd taken tard to head off in me,
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deed, she would. She she never licks anybody, whacks him over
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the head with her thimble, and who cares for that? I'd like to
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know. She talks awful, but talk don't hurt anyways, it toned.
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If she don't cry, Jim, I'll give you a marvel. I'll give
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you a white alley. Jim began to waver white alley, Jim, And
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it's a bully taw my, that's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you.
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But Mars Tom, I's powerful, fraid, oh missus. And besides,
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if you will, I'll show you my sore toe. Jim was only
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human. This attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail,
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took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest.
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While the bandage was being unwound. In another moment, he was flying down
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the street with his pail and a tingling rear. Tom was whitewashing with vigor,
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and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand
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and triumph in her eye. But Tom's energy did not last He began to
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think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied.
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Soon, the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious
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expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to
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work. The very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out
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his worldly wealth and examined it. Bits of toys, marbles, and trash.
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Enough to buy an exchange of work, maybe, but not half enough
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to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned
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his straightened means to his pocket and gave up the idea of trying to buy
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the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment, an inspiration burst upon him,
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nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration. He took up his brush
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and went tranquility to work. Ben rogers Hove in sight, presently the very
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boy of all boys whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was the
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hop, skip and jump, proof enough that his heart was light and his
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anticipations high. He was eating an apple and giving a long, melodious whoop
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at intervals, followed by a deep toned ding dong dong, ding dong dong.
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For he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened
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speed, took the middle of the road, leaned far over to starboard,
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and rounded too ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance, for he was personating
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the Big Missouri and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He
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was boat and captain and engine bells combined, so he had to imagine himself
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standing on his own hurricane deck, giving the orders and executing them. Stop
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her, Sir, Dingalingling. The headway ran almost out, and he drew
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up slowly towards the sidewalk, ship up to back dingalingling. His arms straightened
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and stiffened down his sides. Set her back on the starboard, tingle lingling
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chow chow chow chow. His right hand, meantime, described stately circles,
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for it was representing a forty foot wheel. Let her go back on the
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larboard, ting a lingling ch chow chow chow. The left hand began to
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describe circles. Stop the stobbard, tingle ingling, stop the larboard, come
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ahead on the stobboard, stop her, let her outside, turn her over
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slow tingling chow ch chow chow. Get out that headline lively. Now come
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come out of there with your spring line. What are you bout there?
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Take up a turn that stump with the bright of it, stand by that
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stage. Now let let her go. Done with the engine sir tingle ling
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ling shit st trying the gage cocks. Tom went on whitewashing, paid no
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attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said, Hi,
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ye you're up stump, ain't you no answer? Tom surveyed his last touch
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with the eye of an artist. Then he gave his brush another gentle sweep
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and surveyed the result as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's
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mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said
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hello, old chap, you got to work, eh. Tom wheeled suddenly
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and said, why it's you Ben? I warn't noticing say I'm going in
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a swimming' i am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd
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rather work, wouldn't you? Course you would. Tom contemplated the boy a
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bit and said, what do you call work? Why ain't that work?
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Tom resumed his whitewashing and answered carelessly, well, maybe it is, and
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maybe it ain't all I know? Is it suits? Tom Sawyer? Oh,
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come now, you don't mean to let on that you like that?
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The brush continued to move like it. Well, I don't see why I
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oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash of fence
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every day? Let put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling
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his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth, stepped back to
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note the effect, added a touch here and there, criticized the effect again.
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Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more
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absorbed. Presently, he said, say Tom, let me whitewash a little.
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Tom considered, was about to consent, but he altered his mind.
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No, No, I reckon, it wouldn't hardly do Ben. You see,
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Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence right here on the street, you
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know, But if it was the back fence, I wouldn't mind, and
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she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence. It's got to
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be done very careful. I reckon. There ain't one boy in a thousand,
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maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be
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done. No, is that so? Oh? Come, now, let
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me just try, only just a little. I'd let you if you was
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me, Tom, Ben, I'd like to honest engine, but Aunt Polly
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Well Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him. Sid wanted
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to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now, don't you see
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how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to
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happen to it, Oh shocks, I'll be just as careful. Now let
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me try. Say, I'll give you the core my apple. Well here,
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no, no, Ben, No, now, don't I'm afeared.
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I'll give you all of it. Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in
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his face but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri
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worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in
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the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned
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the slaughter of more innocence. There was no lack of material. Boys happened
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along every little while. They came to jeer, but remained to whitewash.
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By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to
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Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair, and when he played out,
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Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with,
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and so on and so on, hour after hour, and when the
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middle of the afternoon came from being a poor, poverty stricken boy in the
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morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had beside the things before
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mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jew's harp, a piece of blue
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bottle glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock
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anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a
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tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a kitten with only
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one eye, a brass door knob, a dog collar but no dog,
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the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange peel, and a dilapidated
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old window sash. He had had a nice, good idle time all the
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while, plenty of company, and the fence had had three coats of whitewash
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on it. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted
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every boy in the village. Tom said to himself that it was not such
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a hollow world, after all, he had discovered a great law of human
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action without knowing it, namely that in order to make a man or boy
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covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
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If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of
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this book, he would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body
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is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not
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obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers
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or performing on a treadmill is work, while rolling ten pins or climbing Mont
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Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four horse
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passenger coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line in the summer, because
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the privilege costs them considerable money. But if they were offered wages for the
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service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign.
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The boy mused a while over the substantial change which had taken place in his
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worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report the end of Chapter two