The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Part 2. Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  MONDAY morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday morning always foundhim so--because it began another week's slow suffering in school. Hegenerally began that day with wishing he had had no interveningholiday, it made the going into captivity and fetters again so muchmore odious.

  Tom lay thinking. Presently it occurred to him that he wished he wassick; then he could stay home from school. Here was a vaguepossibility. He canvassed his system. No ailment was found, and heinvestigated again. This time he thought he could detect colickysymptoms, and he began to encourage them with considerable hope. Butthey soon grew feeble, and presently died wholly away. He reflectedfurther. Suddenly he discovered something. One of his upper front teethwas loose. This was lucky; he was about to begin to groan, as a"starter," as he called it, when it occurred to him that if he cameinto court with that argument, his aunt would pull it out, and thatwould hurt. So he thought he would hold the tooth in reserve for thepresent, and seek further. Nothing offered for some little time, andthen he remembered hearing the doctor tell about a certain thing thatlaid up a patient for two or three weeks and threatened to make himlose a finger. So the boy eagerly drew his sore toe from under thesheet and held it up for inspection. But now he did not know thenecessary symptoms. However, it seemed well worth while to chance it,so he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.

  But Sid slept on unconscious.

  Tom groaned louder, and fancied that he began to feel pain in the toe.

  No result from Sid.

  Tom was panting with his exertions by this time. He took a rest andthen swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans.

  Sid snored on.

  Tom was aggravated. He said, "Sid, Sid!" and shook him. This courseworked well, and Tom began to groan again. Sid yawned, stretched, thenbrought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare atTom. Tom went on groaning. Sid said:

  "Tom! Say, Tom!" [No response.] "Here, Tom! TOM! What is the matter,Tom?" And he shook him and looked in his face anxiously.

  Tom moaned out:

  "Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me."

  "Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call auntie."

  "No--never mind. It'll be over by and by, maybe. Don't call anybody."

  "But I must! DON'T groan so, Tom, it's awful. How long you been thisway?"

  "Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me."

  "Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? Oh, Tom, DON'T! It makes myflesh crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the matter?"

  "I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.] Everything you've ever doneto me. When I'm gone--"

  "Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom--oh, don't. Maybe--"

  "I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em so, Sid. And Sid, yougive my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that'scome to town, and tell her--"

  But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone. Tom was suffering inreality, now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so hisgroans had gathered quite a genuine tone.

  Sid flew down-stairs and said:

  "Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!"

  "Dying!"

  "Yes'm. Don't wait--come quick!"

  "Rubbage! I don't believe it!"

  But she fled up-stairs, nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels.And her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled. When she reachedthe bedside she gasped out:

  "You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with you?"

  "Oh, auntie, I'm--"

  "What's the matter with you--what is the matter with you, child?"

  "Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!"

  The old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried alittle, then did both together. This restored her and she said:

  "Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you shut up that nonsense andclimb out of this."

  The groans ceased and the pain vanished from the toe. The boy felt alittle foolish, and he said:

  "Aunt Polly, it SEEMED mortified, and it hurt so I never minded mytooth at all."

  "Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with your tooth?"

  "One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful."

  "There, there, now, don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth.Well--your tooth IS loose, but you're not going to die about that.Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen."

  Tom said:

  "Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wishI may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stayhome from school."

  "Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thoughtyou'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I loveyou so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heartwith your outrageousness." By this time the dental instruments wereready. The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's toothwith a loop and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized thechunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. Thetooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now.

  But all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to schoolafter breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap inhis upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new andadmirable way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in theexhibition; and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre offascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenlywithout an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, andhe said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything tospit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and hewandered away a dismantled hero.

  Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, HuckleberryFinn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated anddreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawlessand vulgar and bad--and because all their children admired him so, anddelighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be likehim. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he enviedHuckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict ordersnot to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance.Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grownmen, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hatwas a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat,when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttonsfar down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seatof the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legsdragged in the dirt when not rolled up.

  Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorstepsin fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go toschool or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he couldgo fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as itsuited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as hepleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the springand the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, norput on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everythingthat goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought everyharassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg.

  Tom hailed the romantic outcast:

  "Hello, Huckleberry!"

  "Hello yourself, and see how you like it."

  "What's that you got?"

  "Dead cat."

  "Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him ?"

  "Bought him off'n a boy."

  "What did you give?"

  "I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house."

  "Where'd you get the blue ticket?"

  "Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick."

  "Say--what is dead cats good for, Huck?"

  "Good for? Cure warts with."

  "No! Is that so? I know something that's better."

  "I bet you don't. What is it?"

  "Why, spunk-water."

  "Spunk-water! I wouldn't give
a dern for spunk-water."

  "You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?"

  "No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did."

  "Who told you so!"

  "Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnnytold Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, andthe nigger told me. There now!"

  "Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the nigger. Idon't know HIM. But I never see a nigger that WOULDN'T lie. Shucks! Nowyou tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck."

  "Why, he took and dipped his hand