The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Page 5

  CHAPTER III

  TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by anopen window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom,breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summerair, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsingmurmur of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over herknitting--for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in herlap. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She hadthought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered atseeing him place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. Hesaid: "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 forherself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. ofTom's statement true. When she found the entire fence white-washed, andnot only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even astreak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable. Shesaid:

  "Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you're amind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding, "But it'spowerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'long andplay; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you."

  She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she tookhim 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 treattook to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort.And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" adoughnut.

  Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairwaythat led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy andthe air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like ahail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised facultiesand 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 generalthing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was atpeace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to hisblack thread and getting him into trouble.

  Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by theback of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the reachof capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of thevillage, where two "military" companies of boys had met for conflict,according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of thesearmies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These twogreat commanders did not condescend to fight in person--that being bettersuited to the still smaller fry--but sat together on an eminenceand conducted the field operations by orders delivered throughaides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long andhard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged,the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for thenecessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line andmarched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.

  As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a newgirl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellowhair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroideredpan-talettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. Acertain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even amemory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction;he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poorlittle evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she hadconfessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudestboy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of timeshe had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit isdone.

  He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she haddiscovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, andbegan to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to winher admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time;but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnasticperformances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wendingher way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it,grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer. She halted amoment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a greatsigh 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 shedisappeared.

  The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, andthen shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street asif he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction.Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on hisnose, 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 hisbare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hoppedaway with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for aminute--only while he could button the flower inside his jacket, nexthis heart--or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted inanatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.

  He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showingoff," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tomcomforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near somewindow, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strodehome reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.

  All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered "whathad got into the child." He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, anddid not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under hisaunt'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 intothat 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 waswellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped andbroke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even controlledhis tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak aword, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till sheasked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would benothing so good in the world as to see that pet model "catch it." He wasso brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the oldlady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrathfrom over her spectacles. He said to himself, "Now it's coming!" And thenext instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was upliftedto 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 whenshe got her tongue again, she only said:

  "Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into someother audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."

  Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say somethingkind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into aconfession 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 hearthis aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by theconsciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take noticeof 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 picturedhimself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseechingone little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, anddie with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he picturedhimself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, andhis sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and howher tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to g
ive her backher boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he wouldlie there cold and white and make no sign--a poor little sufferer, whosegriefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos ofthese 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 tohim was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have anyworldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was toosacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary dancedin, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visitof one week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darknessout at one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other.

  He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolateplaces that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the riverinvited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplatedthe dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he couldonly be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing theuncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower.He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismalfelicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would shecry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck andcomfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world?This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that heworked it over and over again in his mind and set it up in new andvaried lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he rose up sighingand departed in the darkness.

  About half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street towhere the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell uponhis listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtainof a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed thefence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood underthat window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid himdown on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back, with hishands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor wilted flower.And thus he would die--out in the cold world, with no shelter over hishomeless 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. Andthus _she_ would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, andoh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, wouldshe 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 holycalm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!

  The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whizas of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a soundas of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over thefence and shot away in the gloom.

  Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying hisdrenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if hehad any dim idea of making any "references to allusions," he thoughtbetter 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 mentalnote of the omission.