by Mark Twain
Dedication
To my wife this book is affectionately dedicated
PREFACE
Preface
-
MOST OF THE ADVENTURES recorded in this book really occurred; one or
two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were
schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also,
but not from an individual- he is a combination of the characteristics
of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite
order of architecture.
The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children
and slaves in the West at the period of this story- that is to say,
thirty or forty years ago.
Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys
and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that
account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind
adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and
thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes
engaged in.
THE AUTHOR.
HARTFORD, 1876.
CHAPTER_1
Chapter 1
Tom Plays, Fights, and Hides
-
"TOM!"
No answer.
"Tom!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them,
about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She
seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy;
they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for
"style," not service;- she could have seen through a pair of stove
lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said,
not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll-"
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and
punching under the bed with the broom- and so she needed breath to
punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
"I never did see the beat of that boy!"
She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the
tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No
Tom. So she lifted up her voice, at an angle calculated for
distance, and shouted:
"Y-o-u-u Tom!"
There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to
seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his
flight.
"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in
there?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that
truck?"
"I don't know, aunt."
"Well, I know. It's jam- that's what it is. Forty times I've said if
you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."
The switch hovered in the air- the peril was desperate-
"My! Look behind you, aunt!"
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger.
The lad fled, on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and
disappeared over it.
His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a
gentle laugh.
"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me
tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time?
But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog
new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them
alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to
know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he
knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me
laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing
my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows.
Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying
up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old
Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and
I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him
off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old
heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few
days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so.
He'll play hookey this evening, and I'll just be obleeged to make
him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him
work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work
more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty
by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."
Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home
barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next day's
wood and split the kindlings, before supper- at least he was there
in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of
the work. Tom's younger brother, (or rather, half-brother) Sid, was
already through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he
was a quiet boy, and had no adventurous, troublesome ways.
While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity
offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and
very deep- for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments.
Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe
she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy and
she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of
low cunning. Said she:
"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"
"Yes'm."
"Powerful warm, warn't it?"
"Yes'm."
"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"
A bit of a scare shot through Tom- a touch of uncomfortable
suspicion. He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing.
So he said:
"No'm- well, not very much."
The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:
"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to
reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody
knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her,
Tom knew where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be
the next move:
"Some of us pumped on our heads- mine's damp yet. See?"
Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of
circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new
inspiration:
"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to
pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"
The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His
shirt collar was securely sewed.
"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played
hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a
kind of a singed cat, as the saying is- better'n you look. This time."
She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that
Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.
But Sidney said:
"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white
thread, but it's black."
"Why I did sew it with white! Tom!"
But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he
said:
"Siddy, I'll lick you for that."
In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust
into the lappels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them- one
needle carried white thread and the other black. He said:
"She'd never noticed, if it hadn't been for Sid. Consound it!
sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with
black. I wish to geeminy she'd stick to one or t'other- I can't keep
the run of 'em. But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!"
He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy
very well though- and loathed him.
Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles.
Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him
than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest
bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time- just as
men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new
enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling,
which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to
practice it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn,
a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof
of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music- the
reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy.
Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode
down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of
gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a
new planet. No doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is
concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.
The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom
checked his whistle. A stranger was before him- a boy a shade larger
than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive
curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Peterburg. This boy
was well dressed, too- well dressed on a week-day. This was simply
astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue
cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had
shoes on- and yet it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright
bit of ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's
vitals. The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he
turned up his nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own
outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the
other moved- but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face
and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said:
"I can lick you!"
"I'd like to see you try it."
"Well, I can do it."
"No you can't, either."
"Yes I can."
"No you can't."
"I can."
"You can't."
"Can."
"Can't."
An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:
"What's your name?"
"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe."
"Well I 'low I'll make it my business."
"Well why don't you?"
"If you say much I will."
"Much- much- much. There now."
"O, you think you're mighty smart, don't you? I could lick you
with one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to."
"Well why don't you do it? You say you can do it."
"Well I will, if you fool with me."
"O yes- I've seen whole families in the same fix."
"Smarty! You think you're some, now, don't you? O what a hat!"
"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock
it off- and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs."
"You're a liar!"
"You're another."
"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up."
"Aw- take a walk!"
"Say- if you gimme much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a
rock off'n your head."
"O, of course you will."
"Well I will."
"Well why don't you do it then? What do you keep saying you will
for? Why don't you do it? It's because you're afraid."
"I ain't afraid."
"You are."
"I ain't."
"You are."
Another pause, and more eyeing and sidling around each other.
Presently they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:
"Get away from here!"
"Go away yourself!"
"I won't."
"I won't either."
So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and
both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with
hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both
were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution,
and Tom said:
"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and
he can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it,
too."
"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's
bigger than he is- and what's more, he can throw him over that fence,
too." [Both brothers were imaginary.]
"That's a lie."
"Your saying so don't make it so."
Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said:
"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't
stand up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal a sheep."
The new boy stepped over promptly, and said:
"Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you do it."
"Don't you crowd me, now; you better look out."
"Well you said you'd do it- why don't you do it?"
"By jingo! for two cents I will do it."
The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them
out with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant both
boys were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like
cats; and for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each
other's hair and clothes, punched and scratched each other's noses,
and covered themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion
took form, and through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated
astride the new boy and pounding him with his fists.
"Holler 'nuff!" said he.
The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying,- mainly
from rage.
"Holler 'nuff!"- and the pounding went on.
At last the stranger got out a smothered "Nuff!" and Tom let him
up and said:
"Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with,
next time."
The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing,
snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and
threatening what he would do to Tom the "next time he caught him out."
To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather,
and as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone,
threw it and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and
ran like an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found
out where he lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time,
daring the enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him
through the window and declined. At last the enemy's mother
appeared, and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him
away. So he went away; but he said he "'lowed" to "lay" for that boy.
He got home pretty late, that night, and when he climbed
cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the
person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in her
resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor
became adamantine in its firmness.
CHAPTER_2
Chapter 2
A The Glorious Whitewasher
-
SATURDAY MORNING was come, and all the summer world was bright and
fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if
the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in
every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in
bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff
Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation,
and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy,
reposeful, and inviting.
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a
long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him
and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of
board fence, nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and
existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it
along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again;
compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching
continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box
discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and
singing "Buffalo Gals." Bringing water from the town pump had always
been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but now it did not strike him
so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White,
mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their
turns, resting, trading playthings, quarreling, fighting,
skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a
hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water
under an hour- and even then somebody generally had to go after him.
Tom said:
"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some."
Jim shook his head and said:
"Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an' git dis
water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars
Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to
my own business- she 'lowed she'd 'tend to de whitewashin'."
"O, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always
talks. Gimme the bucket- I won't be gone only a minute. She won't ever
know."
"O, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head
off'n me. 'Deed she would."
"She! She never licks anybody- whacks 'em over the head with her
thimble- and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful,
but talk don't hurt- anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give
you a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!"
Jim began to waver.
"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw."
"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I's
powerful 'fraid ole missis-"
"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe."
Jim was only human- this attraction was too much for him. He put
down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with
absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another
moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling
rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring
from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.
But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had
planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys
would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and
they would make a world of fun of him for having to work- the very
thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and
examined it- bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an
exchange of work, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an
hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his
pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark
and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a
great, magnificent inspiration!
He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in
sight presently- the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been
dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump- proof enough that
his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an
apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a
deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a
steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the
street, leaned far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and
with laborious pomp and circumstance- for he was personating the
"Big Missouri," and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of
water. He was boat, and captain, and engine-bells combined, so he
had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the
orders and executing them:
"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out and he
drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.
"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and
stiffened down his sides.
"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow!
Chow!" His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles,- for it
was representing a forty-foot wheel.
"Let her go back on the labbord! Ting-a-ling-ling!
Chow-ch-chow-chow!" The left hand began to describe circles.
"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labbord! Come
ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow!
Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! Lively now!
Come- out with your spring-line- what're you about there! Take a
turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage,
now- let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! Sh't!
s'h't! sh't!" (trying the gauge-cocks.)
Tom went on whitewashing- paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben
stared a moment and then said:
"Hi-yi! You're up a stump, ain't you!"
No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist;
then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result,
as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the
apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:
"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"
Tom wheeled suddenly and said:
"Why it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."
"Say- I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But
of course you'd druther work- wouldn't you? 'Course you would!"
Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:
"What do you call work?"
"Why ain't that work?"
Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:
"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, is, it suits Tom
Sawyer."
"O, come, now, you don't mean to let on that you like it?"
The brush continued to move.
"Like it? Well I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get
a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple.
Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth- stepped back to note
the effect- added a touch here and there- criticised the effect again-
Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and
more absorbed. Presently he said:
"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."
Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:
"No- no- I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt
Polly's awful particular about this fence- right here on the street,
you know- but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and she
wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be
done very careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe
two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."
"No- is that so? Oh come, now- lemme just try. Only just a little-
I'd let you, if you was me, Tom."
"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly- well Jim wanted
to do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she
wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to
tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it-"
"O, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say- I'll give
you the core of my apple."
"Well, here- No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard-"
"I'll give you all of it!"
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face but alacrity in
his heart. And while the late steamer "Big Missouri" worked and
sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade
close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the
slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys
happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained
to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the
next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he
played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to
swing it with- and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the
middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy
in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had beside the
things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a
piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that
wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a
decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a
kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog-collar- but no
dog- the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange peel, and a
dilapidated old window sash.
He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while- plenty of company-
and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out
of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after
all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing
it- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it
is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had
been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he
would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is
obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not
obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why
constructing artificial flowers or performing on a treadmill is
work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement.
There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse
passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the
summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if
they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into
work and then they would resign.
The boy mused a while over the substantial change which had taken
place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward
headquarters to report.
CHAPTER_3
Chapter 3
Busy at War and Love
-
TOM PRESENTED HIMSELF before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an
open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bed-room,
breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer
air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing
murmur of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over
her knitting- for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in
her lap. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety.
She had thought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she
wondered at seeing him place himself in her power again in this
intrepid way. He said: "Mayn't I go and play now, aunt?"
"What, a'ready? How much have you done?"
"It's all done, aunt."
"Tom, don't lie to me- I can't bear it."
"I ain't, aunt; it is all done."
Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to
see for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per
cent of Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence
whitewashed, and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and
recoated, and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment
was almost unspeakable. She said:
"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when
you're a mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding,
"But it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go
'long and play; but mind you get back sometime in a week, or I'll
tan you."
She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took
him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to
him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a
treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort.
And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a
doughnut.
Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside
stairway that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were
handy and the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around
Sid like a hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her
surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had
taken personal effect and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a
gate, but as a general thing he was too crowded for time to make use
of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had settled with Sid for
calling attention to his black thread and getting him into trouble.
Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by
the back of his aunt's cow-stable; he presently got safely beyond
the reach of capture and punishment, and hasted toward the public
square of the village, where two "military" companies of boys had
met for conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General
of one of these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend,) General of the
other. These two great commanders did not condescend to fight in
person- that being better suited to the still smaller fry- but sat
together on an eminence and conducted the field operations by orders
delivered through aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after
a long and hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners
exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon and the
day for the necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell
into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.
As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a
new girl in the garden- a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow
hair plaited into two long tails, white summer frock and embroidered
pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A
certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a
memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to
distraction, he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it
was only a poor little evanescent partiality. He had been months
winning her; she had confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the
happiest and the proudest boy in the world only seven short days,
and here in one instant of time she had gone out of his heart like a
casual stranger whose visit is done.
He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that
she had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was
present, and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways,
in order to win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque
foolishness for some time; but by and by, while he was in the midst of
some dangerous gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that
the little girl was wending her way toward the house. Tom came up to
the fence and leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet a
while longer. She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward
the door. Tom heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the
threshold. But his face lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy
over the fence a moment before she disappeared.
The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower,
and then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street
as if he had discovered something of interest going on in that
direction. Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to
balance it on his nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved
from side to side, in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward
the pansy; finally his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes
closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure and disappeared
round the corner. But only for a minute- only while he could button
the flower inside his jacket, next his heart- or next his stomach,
possibly, for he was not much posted in anatomy, and not
hypercritical, anyway.
He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall,
"showing off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself
again, though Tom comforted himself a little with the hope that she
had been near some window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions.
Finally he rode home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.
All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered
"what had got into the child." He took a good scolding about
clodding Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to
steal sugar under his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped
for it. He said:
"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it."
"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into
that sugar if I warn't watching you."
Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his
immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl- a sort of glorying over Tom
which was well-nigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl
dropped and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he
even controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that
he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit
perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would
tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that
pet model "catch it." He was so brim-full of exultation that he
could hardly hold himself when the old lady came back and stood
above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath from over her
spectacles. He said to himself, "Now it's coming!" And the next
instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to
strike again when Tom cried out:
"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting me for?- Sid broke it!"
Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But
when she got her tongue again, she only said:
"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into
some other owdacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."
Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something
kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a
confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade
that. So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a
troubled heart. Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew
that in her heart his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was
morosely gratified by the consciousness of it. He would hang out no
signals, he would take notice of none. He knew that a yearning
glance fell upon him, now and then, through a film of tears, but he
refused recognition of it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death
and his aunt bending over him beseeching one little forgiving word,
but he would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word unsaid.
Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from
the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his poor hands still
forever, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself
upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray
God to give her back her boy and she would never never abuse him any
more! But he would lie there cold and white and make no sign- a poor
little sufferer whose griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his
feelings with the pathos of these dreams that he had to keep
swallowing, he was so like to choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of
water, which overflowed when he winked, and ran down and trickled from
the end of his nose. And such a luxury to him was this petting of
his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness
or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such
contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced in, all
alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit of one
week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darkness out at
one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other.
He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought
desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in
the river invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and
contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while,
that he could only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously,
without undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then
he thought of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it
mightily increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if she would
pity him if she knew? Would she cry, and wish that she had a right
to put her arms around his neck and comfort him? Or would she turn
coldly away like all the hollow world? This picture brought such an
agony of pleasurable suffering that he worked it over and over again
in his mind and set it up in new and varied lights till he wore it
threadbare. At last he rose up sighing, and departed in the darkness.
About half past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted
street to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound
fell upon his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the
curtain of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He
climbed the fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants,
till he stood under that window; he looked up at it long, and with
emotion; then he laid him down on the ground under it, disposing
himself upon his back, with his hands clasped upon his breast and
holding his poor wilted flower. And thus he would die- out in the cold
world, with no shelter over his homeless head, no friendly hand to
wipe the death-damps from his brow, no loving face to bend pityingly
over him when the great agony came. And thus she would see him when
she looked out upon the glad morning- and O! would she drop one little
tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh
to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?
The window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the
holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!
The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort, there was a
whiz as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a
sound as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went
over the fence and shot away in the gloom.
Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his
drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he
had any dim idea of making any "references to allusions," he thought
better of it and held his peace- for there was danger in Tom's eye.
Tom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made
mental note of the omission.
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