The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Part 1. Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer world was bright andfresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and ifthe heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer inevery face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloomand the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyondthe village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just farenough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

  Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and along-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him anda deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of boardfence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but aburden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmostplank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificantwhitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashedfence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out atthe gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water fromthe town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, butnow it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company atthe pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always therewaiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling,fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was onlya hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket ofwater under an hour--and even then somebody generally had to go afterhim. 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 diswater an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' MarsTom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tendto my own business--she 'lowed SHE'D 'tend to de whitewashin'."

  "Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she alwaystalks. Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only a a minute. SHE won'tever know."

  "Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'nme. 'Deed she would."

  "SHE! She never licks anybody--whacks 'em over the head with herthimble--and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, buttalk don't hurt--anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give youa 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 downhis pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbinginterest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he wasflying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom waswhitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the fieldwith 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 hadplanned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boyswould come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, andthey would make a world of fun of him for having to work--the verythought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth andexamined it--bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy anexchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half anhour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to hispocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this darkand hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than agreat, magnificent inspiration.

  He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove insight presently--the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had beendreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that hisheart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, andgiving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-tonedding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. Ashe drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leanedfar over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laboriouspomp and circumstance--for he was personating the Big Missouri, andconsidered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat andcaptain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himselfstanding on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:

  "Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and hedrew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

  "Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened andstiffened 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 wasrepresenting a forty-foot wheel.

  "Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-lingling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!"The left hand began to describe circles.

  "Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come aheadon 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 turnround that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now--let hergo! 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. Benstared 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, thenhe gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, asbefore. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for theapple, 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 ofcourse 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 TomSawyer."

  "Oh 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 geta chance to whitewash a fence every day?"

  That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tomswept his brush daintily back and forth--stepped back to note theeffect--added a touch here and there--criticised the effect again--Benwatching every move and getting more and more interested, more and moreabsorbed. 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'sawful 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 verycareful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe twothousand, 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'dlet YOU, if you was me, Tom."

  "Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly--well, Jim wanted todo it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn'tlet Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle thisfence and anything was to happen to it--"

  "Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say--I'll giveyou 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 hisheart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated inthe sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by,dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of moreinnocents. There was no lack of material; boys
happened along everylittle while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the timeBen was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher fora kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought infor 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 beinga poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rollingin wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles,part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, aspool cannon, a key that