Chapter 18
Tom Reveals His Dream Secret
-
THAT WAS TOM'S GREAT secret- the scheme to return home with his
brother pirates and attend their own funerals. They had paddled over
to the Missouri shore on a log, at dusk on Saturday, landing five or
six miles below the village; they had slept in the woods at the edge
of the town till nearly daylight, and had then crept through back
lanes and alleys and finished their sleep in the gallery of the church
among a chaos of invalided benches.
At breakfast Monday morning, Aunt Polly and Mary were very loving to
Tom, and very attentive to his wants. There was an unusual amount of
talk. In the course of it Aunt Polly said:
"Well, I don't say it wasn't a fine joke, Tom, to keep everybody
suffering 'most a week so you boys had a good time, but it is a pity
you could be so hard-hearted as to let me suffer so. If you could come
over on a log to go to your funeral, you could have come over and give
me a hint some way that you warn't dead, but only run off."
"Yes, you could have done that, Tom," said Mary; "and I believe
you would if you had thought of it."
"Would you Tom?" said Aunt Polly, her face lighting wistfully.
"Say, now, would you, if you'd thought of it?"
"I- well I don't know. 'Twould a spoiled everything."
"Tom, I hoped you loved me that much," said Aunt Polly, with a
grieved tone that discomforted the boy. "It would been something if
you'd cared enough to think of it, even if you didn't do it."
"Now auntie, that ain't any harm," pleaded Mary; "it's only Tom's
giddy way- he is always in such a rush that he never thinks of
anything."
"More's the pity. Sid would have thought. And Sid would have come
and done it, too. Tom, you'll look back, some day, when it's too late,
and wish you'd cared a little more for me when it would have cost
you so little."
"Now auntie, you know I do care for you," said Tom.
"I'd know it better if you acted more like it."
"I wish now I'd thought," said Tom, with a repentant tone; "but I
dreamed about you anyway. That's something, ain't it?"
"It ain't much- a cat does that much- but it's better than
nothing. What did you dream?"
"Why Wednesday night I dreamt that you was sitting over there by the
bed, and Sid was sitting by the wood-box, and Mary next to him."
"Well, so we did. So we always do. I'm glad your dreams could take
even that much trouble about us."
"And I dreamt that Joe Harper's mother was here."
"Why, she was here! Did you dream any more?"
"O, lots. But it's so dim, now."
"Well, try to recollect- can't you?"
"Somehow it seems to me that the wind- the wind blowed the- the-"
"Try harder, Tom! The wind did blow something. Come!"
Tom pressed his fingers on his forehead an anxious minute, and
then said:
"I've got it now! I've got it now! It blowed the candle!"
"Mercy on us! Go on, Tom- go on!"
"And it seems to me that you said, 'Why I believe that that door-'"
"Go on, Tom!"
"Just let me study a moment- just a moment. O, yes- you said you
believed the door was open."
"As I'm a-sitting here, I did! Didn't I, Mary? Go on!"
"And then- and then- well I won't be certain, but it seems like as
if you made Sid go and- and-"
"Well? Well? What did I make him do, Tom? What did I make him do?"
"You made him- you- O, you made him shut it."
"Well for the land's sake! I never heard the beat of that in all
my days! Don't tell me there ain't anything in dreams, any more.
Sereny Harper shall know of this before I'm an hour older. I'd like to
see her get around this with her rubbage 'bout superstition. Go on,
Tom!"
"O, it's all getting just as bright as day, now. Next you said I
warn't bad, only mischeevous and harum-scarum, and not any more
responsible than- than- I think it was a colt, or something."
"And so it was! Well, goodness gracious! Go on, Tom!"
"And then you began to cry."
"So I did. So I did. Not the first time, neither. And then-"
"Then Mrs. Harper she began to cry, and said Joe was just the same
and she wished she hadn't whipped him for taking cream when she'd
throwed it out her own self-"
"Tom! The sperrit was upon you! You was a-prophecying- that's what
you was doing! Land alive, go on, Tom!"
"Then Sid he said- he said-"
"I don't think I said anything," said Sid.
"Yes you did, Sid," said Mary.
"Shut your heads and let Tom go on! What did he say, Tom?"
"He said- I think he said he hoped I was better off where I was gone
to, but if I'd been better sometimes-"
"There, d'you hear that! It was his very words!"
"And you shut him up sharp."
"I lay I did! There must a been an angel there. There was an angel
there, somewheres!"
"And Mrs. Harper told about Joe scaring her with a fire-cracker, and
you told about Peter and the Pain-killer-"
"Just as true as I live!"
"And then there was a whole lot of talk 'bout dragging the river for
us, and 'bout having the funeral Sunday, and then you and old Miss
Harper hugged and cried, and she went."
"It happened just so! It happened just so, as sure as I'm
a-sitting in these very tracks. Tom you couldn't told it more like, if
you'd a seen it! And then what? Go on, Tom?"
"Then I thought you prayed for me- and I could see you and hear
every word you said. And you went to bed, and I was so sorry, that I
took and wrote on a piece of sycamore bark, 'We ain't dead- we are
only off being pirates,' and put it on the table by the candle; and
then you looked so good, laying there asleep, that I thought I went
and leaned over and kissed you on the lips."
"Did you, Tom, did you! I just forgive you everything for that!" And
she seized the boy in a crushing embrace that made him feel like the
guiltiest of villains.
"It was very kind, even though it was only a- dream," Sid
soliloquised just audibly.
"Shut up Sid! A body does just the same in a dream as he'd do if
he was awake. Here's a big Milum apple I've been saving for you Tom,
if you was ever found again- now go 'long to school. I'm thankful to
the good God and Father of us all I've got you back, that's
long-suffering and merciful to them that believe on Him and keep His
word, though goodness knows I'm unworthy of it, but if only the worthy
ones got His blessings and had His hand to help them over the rough
places, there's few enough would smile here or ever enter into His
rest when the long night comes. Go 'long Sid, Mary, Tom- take
yourselves off- you've hendered me long enough."
The children left for school, and the old lady to call on Mrs.
Harper and vanquish her realism with Tom's marvelous dream. Sid had
better judgment than to utter the thought that was in his mind as he
left the house. It was this: "Pretty thin- as long a dream as that,
without any mistakes in it!"
What a hero Tom was become, now! He did not go skipping and
prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger as became a pirate who
felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not
to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but
they were food and drink to him. Smaller boys than himself flocked
at his heels, as proud to be seen with him and tolerated by him, as if
he had been the drummer at the head of a procession or the elephant
leading a menagerie into town. Boys of his own size pretended not to
know he had been away at all; but they were consuming with envy,
nevertheless. They would have given anything to have that swarthy
sun-tanned skin of his, and his glittering notoriety; and Tom would
not have parted with either for a circus.
At school the children made so much of him and of Joe, and delivered
such eloquent admiration from their eyes, that the two heroes were not
long in becoming insufferably "stuck-up." They began to tell their
adventures to hungry listeners- but they only began; it was not a
thing likely to have an end, with imaginations like theirs to
furnish material. And finally, when they got out their pipes and
went serenely puffing around, the very summit of glory was reached.
Tom decided that he could be independent of Becky Thatcher now.
Glory was sufficient. He would live for glory. Now that he was
distinguished, maybe she would be wanting to "make up." Well, let her-
she should see that he could be as indifferent as some other people.
Presently she arrived. Tom pretended not to see her. He moved away and
joined a group of boys and girls and began to talk. Soon he observed
that she was tripping gayly back and forth with flushed face and
dancing eyes, pretending to be busy chasing school-mates, and
screaming with laughter when she made a capture; but he noticed that
she always made her captures in his vicinity, and that she seemed to
cast a conscious eye in his direction at such times, too. It gratified
all the vicious vanity that was in him; and so, instead of winning him
it only "set him up" the more and made him the more diligent to
avoid betraying that he knew she was about. Presently she gave over
skylarking, and moved irresolutely about, sighing once or twice and
glancing furtively and wistfully toward Tom. Then she observed that
now Tom was talking more particularly to Amy Lawrence than to any
one else. She felt a sharp pang and grew disturbed and uneasy at once.
She tried to go away, but her feet were treacherous, and carried her
to the group instead. She said to a girl almost at Tom's elbow- with
sham vivacity:
"Why Mary Austin! you bad girl, why didn't you come to
Sunday-school?"
"I did come- didn't you see me?"
"Why no! Did you? Where did you sit?"
"I was in Miss Peter's class, where I always go. I saw you."
"Did you? Why it's funny I didn't see you. I wanted to tell you
about the picnic."
"O, that's jolly. Who's going to give it?"
"My ma's going to let me have one."
"O, goody; I hope she'll let me come."
"Well she will. The picnic's for me. She'll let anybody come that
I want, and I want you."
"That's ever so nice. When is it going to be?"
"By and by. Maybe about vacation."
"O, won't it be fun! You going to have all the girls and boys?"
"Yes, every one that's friends to me- or wants to be;" and she
glanced ever so furtively at Tom, but he talked right along to Amy
Lawrence about the terrible storm on the island, and how the lightning
tore the great sycamore tree "all to flinders" while he was
"standing within three feet of it."
"O, may I come?" said Gracie Miller.
"Yes."
"And me?" said Sally Rogers.
"Yes."
"And me, too?" said Susy Harper. "And Joe?"
"Yes."
And so on, with clapping of joyful hands till all the group had
begged for invitations but Tom and Amy. Then Tom turned coolly away,
still talking, and took Amy with him. Becky's lips trembled and the
tears came to her eyes; she hid these signs with a forced gayety and
went on chattering, but the life had gone out of the picnic, now,
and out of everything else; she got away as soon as she could and
hid herself and had what her sex call "a good cry." Then she sat
moody, with wounded pride till the bell rang. She roused up, now, with
a vindictive cast in her eye, and gave her plaited tails a shake and
said she knew what she'd do.
At recess Tom continued his flirtation with Amy with jubilant
self-satisfaction. And he kept drifting about to find Becky and
lacerate her with the performance. At last he spied her, but there was
a sudden falling of his mercury. She was sitting cosily on a little
bench behind the school-house looking at a picture book with Alfred
Temple- and so absorbed were they, and their heads so close together
over the book that they did not seem to be conscious of anything in
the world beside. Jealousy ran red hot through Tom's veins. He began
to hate himself for throwing away the chance Becky had offered for a
reconciliation. He called himself a fool, and all the hard names he
could think of. He wanted to cry with vexation. Amy chatted happily
along, as they walked, for her heart was singing, but Tom's tongue had
lost its function. He did not hear what Amy was saying, and whenever
she paused expectantly he could only stammer an awkward assent,
which was as often misplaced as otherwise. He kept drifting to the
rear of the schoolhouse, again and again, to sear his eye-balls with
the hateful spectacle there. He could not help it. And it maddened him
to see, as he thought he saw, that Becky Thatcher never once suspected
that he was even in the land of the living. But she did see,
nevertheless; and she knew she was winning her fight, too, and was
glad to see him suffer as she had suffered.
Amy's happy prattle became intolerable. Tom hinted at things he
had to attend to; things that must be done; and time was fleeting. But
in vain- the girl chirped on. Tom thought, "O hang her, ain't I ever
going to get rid of her?" At last he must be attending to those
things; and she said artlessly that she would be "around" when
school let out. And he hastened away, hating her for it.
"Any other boy!" Tom thought, grating his teeth. "Any boy in the
whole town but that Saint Louis smarty that thinks he dresses so
fine and is aristocracy! O, all right, I licked you the first day
you ever saw this town, mister, and I'll lick you again! You just wait
till I catch you out! I'll just take and-"
And he went through the motions of thrashing an imaginary boy-
pummeling the air, and kicking and gouging. "O, you do, do you? You
holler 'nough, do you? Now, then, let that learn you!" And so the
imaginary flogging was finished to his satisfaction.
Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of
Amy's grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the
other distress. Becky resumed her picture-inspections with Alfred, but
as the minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph
began to cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absent-mindedness
followed, and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her
ear at a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came. At last she
grew entirely miserable and wished she hadn't carried it so far.
When poor Alfred, seeing that he was losing her, he did not know
how, and kept exclaiming: "O here's a jolly one! look at this!" she
lost patience at last, and said, "O, don't bother me! I don't care for
them!" and burst into tears, and got up and walked away.
Alfred dropped alongside and was going to try to comfort her, but
she said:
"Go away and leave me alone, can't you! I hate you!"
So the boy halted, wondering what he could have done- for she had
said she would look at pictures all through the nooning- and she
walked on, crying. Then Alfred went musing into the deserted
schoolhouse. He was humiliated and angry. He easily guessed his way to
the truth- the girl had simply made a convenience of him to vent her
spite upon Tom Sawyer. He was far from hating Tom the less when this
thought occurred to him. He wished there was some way to get that
boy into trouble without much risk to himself. Tom's spelling book
fell under his eye. Here was his opportunity. He gratefully opened
to the lesson for the afternoon and poured ink upon the page.
Becky, glancing in at a window behind him at the moment, saw the
act, and moved on, without discovering herself. She started
homeward, now, intending to find Tom and tell him; Tom would be
thankful and their troubles would be healed. Before she was half way
home, however, she had changed her mind. The thought of Tom's
treatment of her when she was talking about her picnic came
scorching back and filled her with shame. She resolved to let him
get whipped on the damaged spelling-book's account, and to hate him
forever, into the bargain.
CHAPTER_19
Chapter 19
The Cruelty of "I Didn't Think"
-
TOM ARRIVED AT HOME in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt
said to him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an
unpromising market:
"Tom, I've a notion to skin you alive!"
"Auntie, what have I done?"
"Well, you've done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like
an old softy, expecting I'm going to make her believe all that rubbage
about that dream, when lo and behold you she'd found out from Joe that
you was over here and heard all the talk we had that night. Tom I
don't know what is to become of a boy that will act like that. It
makes me feel so bad to think you could let me go to Sereny Harper and
make such a fool of myself and never say a word."
This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had
seemed to Tom a good joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked
mean and shabby now. He hung his head and could not think of
anything to say for a moment. Then he said:
"Auntie, I wish I hadn't done it- but I didn't think."
"O, child you never think. You never think of anything but your
own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from
Jackson's Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you
could think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn't ever
think to pity us and save us from sorrow."
"Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn't mean to be mean. I
didn't, honest. And besides I didn't come over here to laugh at you
that night."
"What did you come for, then?"
"It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn't got
drownded."
"Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could
believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never
did- and I know it, Tom."
"Indeed and 'deed I did, auntie- I wish I may never stir if I
didn't."
"O, Tom, don't lie- don't do it. It only makes things a hundred
times worse."
"It ain't a lie, auntie, it's the truth. I wanted to keep you from
grieving- that was all that made me come."
"I'd give the whole world to believe that- it would cover up a power
of sins, Tom. I'd most be glad you'd run off and acted so bad. But
it ain't reasonable; because, why didn't you tell me, child?"
"Why, you see, auntie, when you got to talking about the funeral,
I just got all full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the
church, and I couldn't somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the
bark back in my pocket and kept mum."
"What bark?"
"The bark I had wrote on to tell you we'd gone pirating. I wish,
now, you'd waked up when I kissed you- I do, honest."
The hard lines in his aunt's face relaxed and a sudden tenderness
dawned in her eyes.
"Did you kiss me, Tom?"
"Why yes I did."
"Are you sure you did, Tom?"
"Why yes I did, auntie- certain sure."
"What did you kiss me for, Tom?"
"Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so
sorry."
The words sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor
in her voice when she said:
"Kiss me again, Tom!- and be off with you to school, now, and
don't bother me any more."
The moment he was gone, she ran to a closet and got out the ruin
of a jacket which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with
it in her hand, and said to herself.
"No, I don't dare. Poor boy, I reckon he's lied about it- but it's a
blessed, blessed lie, there's such comfort come from it. I hope the
Lord- I know the Lord will forgive him, because it was such
good-heartedness in him to tell it. But I don't want to find out
it's a lie. I won't look."
She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. Twice she put
out her hand to take the garment again, and twice she refrained.
Once more she ventured, and this time she fortified herself with the
thought: "It's a good lie- it's a good lie- I won't let it grieve me."
So she sought the jacket pocket. A moment later she was reading
Tom's piece of bark through flowing tears and saying: "I could forgive
the boy, now, if he'd committed a million sins!"
CHAPTER_20
Chapter 20
Tom Takes Becky's Punishment
-
THERE WAS SOMETHING about Aunt Polly's manner, when she kissed
Tom, that swept away his low spirits and made him lighthearted and
happy again. He started to school and had the luck of coming upon
Becky Thatcher at the head of Meadow Lane. His mood always
determined his manner. Without a moment's hesitation he ran to her and
said:
"I acted mighty mean to-day, Becky, and I'm so sorry. I won't
ever, ever do that way again, as long as ever I live- please make
up, won't you?"
The girl stopped and looked him scornfully in the face:
"I'll thank you to keep yourself to yourself, Mr. Thomas Sawyer.
I'll never speak to you again."
She tossed her head and passed on. Tom was so stunned that he had
not even presence of mind enough to say "Who cares, Miss Smarty?"
until the right time to say it had gone by. So he said nothing. But he
was in a fine rage, nevertheless. He moped into the school-yard
wishing she were a boy, and imagining how he would trounce her if
she were. He presently encountered her and delivered a stinging remark
as he passed. She hurled one in return, and the angry breach was
complete. It seemed to Becky, in her hot resentment, that she could
hardly wait for school to "take in," she was so impatient to see Tom
flogged for the injured spelling-book. If she had had lingering notion
of exposing Alfred Temple, Tom's offensive fling had driven it
entirely away.
Poor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble
herself. The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an
unsatisfied ambition. The darling of his desires was to be a doctor,
but poverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a
village schoolmaster. Every day he took a mysterious book out of his
desk and absorbed himself in it at times when no classes were
reciting. He kept that book under lock and key. There was not an
urchin in school but was perishing to have a glimpse of it, but the
chance never came. Every boy and girl had a theory about the nature of
that book; but no two theories were alike, and there was no way of
getting at the facts in the case. Now, as Becky was passing by the
desk, which stood near the door, she noticed that the key was in the
lock! It was a precious moment. She glanced around; found herself
alone, and the next instant she had the book in her hands. The title
page- Professor somebody's "Anatomy"- carried no information to her
mind; so she began to turn the leaves. She came at once upon a
handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece- a human figure, stark
naked. At that moment a shadow fell on the page and Tom Sawyer stepped
in at the door, and caught a glimpse of the picture. Becky snatched at
the book to close it, and had the hard luck to tear the pictured
page half down the middle. She thrust the volume into the desk, turned
the key, and burst out crying with shame and vexation.
"Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a
person and look at what they're looking at."
"How could I know you was looking at anything?"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself Tom Sawyer; you know you're
going to tell on me, and O, what shall I do, what shall I do! I'll
be whipped, and I never was whipped in school."
Then she stamped her little foot and said:
"Be so mean if you want to! I know something that's going to happen.
You just wait and you'll see! Hateful, hateful, hateful!"- and she
flung out of the house with a new explosion of crying.
Tom stood still, rather flustered by this onslaught. Presently he
said to himself.
"What a curious kind of a fool a girl is. Never been licked in
school! Shucks, what's a licking! That's just like a girl- they're so
thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. Well, of course I ain't going to
tell old Dobbins on this little fool, because there's other ways of
getting even on her, that ain't so mean; but what of it? Old Dobbins
will ask who it was tore his book. Nobody'll answer. Then he'll do
just the way he always does- ask first one and then t'other, and
when he comes to the right girl he'll know it, without any telling.
Girls' faces always tell on them. They ain't got any backbone.
She'll get licked. Well, it's a kind of a tight place for Becky
Thatcher, because there ain't any way out of it." Tom conned the thing
a moment longer and then added: "All right, though; she'd like to
see me in just such a fix- let her sweat it out!"
Tom joined the mob of skylarking scholars outside. In a few
moments the master arrived and school "took in." Tom did not feel a
strong interest in his studies. Every time he stole a glance at the
girls' side of the room Becky's face troubled him. Considering all
things, he did not want to pity her, and yet it was all he could do to
help it. He could get up no exultation that was really worthy the
name. Presently the spelling-book discovery was made, and Tom's mind
was entirely full of his own matters for a while after that. Becky
roused up from her lethargy of distress and showed good interest in
the proceedings. She did not expect that Tom could get out of his
trouble by denying that he spilt the ink on the book himself, and
she was right. The denial only seemed to make the thing worse for Tom.
Becky supposed she would be glad of that, and she tried to believe she
was glad of it, but she found she was not certain. When the worst came
to the worst, she had an impulse to get up and tell on Alfred
Temple, but she made an effort and forced herself to keep still-
because, said she to herself, "he'll tell about me tearing the
picture, sure. I wouldn't say a word, not to save his life!"
Tom took his whipping and went back to his seat not at all
brokenhearted, for he thought it was possible that he had
unknowingly upset the ink on the spelling-book himself, in some
skylarking bout- he had denied it for form's sake and because it was
custom, and had stuck to the denial from principle.
A whole hour drifted by, the master sat nodding in his throne, the
air was drowsy with the hum of study. By and by, Mr. Dobbins
straightened himself up, yawned, then unlocked his desk, and reached
for his book, but seemed undecided whether to take it out or leave it.
Most of the pupils glanced up languidly, but there were two among them
that watched his movements with intent eyes. Mr. Dobbins fingered
his book absently for a while, then took it out and settled himself in
his chair to read! Tom shot a glance at Becky. He had seen a hunted
and helpless rabbit look as she did, with a gun leveled at its head.
Instantly he forgot his quarrel with her. Quick- something must be
done! done in a flash, too! But the very imminence of the emergency
paralyzed his invention. Good!- he had an inspiration! He would run
and snatch the book, spring through the door and fly. But his
resolution shook for one little instant, and the chance was lost-
the master opened the volume. If Tom only had the wasted opportunity
back again! Too late; there was no help for Becky now, he said. The
next moment the master faced the school. Every eye sunk under his
gaze. There was that in it which smote even the innocent with fear.
There was silence while one might count ten; the master was
gathering his wrath. Then he spoke:
"Who tore this book?"
There was not a sound. One could have heard a pin drop. The
stillness continued; the master searched face after face for signs
of guilt.
"Benjamin Rogers, did you tear this book?"
A denial. Another pause.
"Joseph Harper, did you?"
Another denial. Tom's uneasiness grew more and more intense under
the slow torture of these proceedings. The master scanned the ranks of
boys- considered a while, then turned to the girls:
"Amy Lawrence?"
A shake of the head.
"Gracie Miller?"
The same sign.
"Susan Harper, did you do this?"
Another negative. The next girl was Becky Thatcher. Tom was
trembling from head to foot with excitement and a sense of the
hopelessness of the situation.
"Rebecca Thatcher," (Tom glanced at her face- it was white with
terror,)- "did you tear- no, look me in the face"- (her hands rose
in appeal)- "did you tear this book?"
A thought shot like lightning through Tom's brain. He sprang to
his feet and shouted-
"I done it!"
The school stared in perplexity at this incredible folly. Tom
stood a moment, to gather his dismembered faculties; and when he
stepped forward to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude,
the adoration that shone upon him out of poor Becky's eyes seemed
pay enough for a hundred floggings. Inspired by the splendor of his
own act, he took without an outcry the most merciless flaying that
even Mr. Dobbins had ever administered; and also received with
indifference the added cruelty of a command to remain two hours
after school should be dismissed- for he knew who would wait for him
outside till his captivity was done, and not count the tedious time as
loss, either.
Tom went to bed that night planning vengeance against Alfred Temple;
for with shame and repentance Becky had told him all, not forgetting
her own treachery; but even the longing for vengeance had to give way,
soon, to pleasanter musings, and he fell asleep at last, with
Becky's latest words lingering dreamily in his ear-
"Tom, how could you be so noble!"
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