The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Page 24

  CHAPTER XXII

  TOM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by theshowy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain from smoking,chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he found outa new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest wayin the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. Tom soonfound himself tormented with a desire to drink and swear; the desiregrew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of a chance to displayhimself in his red sash kept him from withdrawing from the order. Fourthof July was coming; but he soon gave that up--gave it up before he hadworn his shackles over forty-eight hours--and fixed his hopes upon oldJudge Frazer, justice of the peace, who was apparently on his deathbedand would have a big public funeral, since he was so high an official.During three days Tom was deeply concerned about the Judge's conditionand hungry for news of it. Sometimes his hopes ran high--so high thathe would venture to get out his regalia and practise before thelooking-glass. But the Judge had a most discouraging way of fluctuating.At last he was pronounced upon the mend--and then convalescent. Tom wasdisgusted; and felt a sense of injury, too. He handed in his resignationat once--and that night the Judge suffered a relapse and died. Tomresolved that he would never trust a man like that again.

  The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded in a style calculatedto kill the late member with envy. Tom was a free boy again,however--there was something in that. He could drink and swear, now--butfound to his surprise that he did not want to. The simple fact that hecould, took the desire away, and the charm of it.

  Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted vacation was beginningto hang a little heavily on his hands.

  He attempted a diary--but nothing happened during three days, and so heabandoned it.

  The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to town, and made asensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band of performers and were happyfor two days.

  Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure, for it rainedhard, there was no procession in consequence, and the greatest manin the world (as Tom supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United StatesSenator, proved an overwhelming disappointment--for he was nottwenty-five feet high, nor even anywhere in the neighborhood of it.

  A circus came. The boys played circus for three days afterward in tentsmade of rag carpeting--admission, three pins for boys, two for girls--andthen circusing was abandoned.

  A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came--and went again and left the villageduller and drearier than ever.

  There were some boys-and-girls' parties, but they were so few and sodelightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder.

  Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with herparents during vacation--so there was no bright side to life anywhere.

  The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic misery. It was a verycancer for permanency and pain.

  Then came the measles.

  During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and itshappenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he gotupon his feet at last and moved feebly downtown, a melancholy change hadcome over everything and every creature. There had been a "revival," andeverybody had "got religion," not only the adults, but even the boys andgirls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the sight of one blessedsinful face, but disappointment crossed him everywhere. He found JoeHarper studying a Testament, and turned sadly away from the depressingspectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found him visiting the poor with abasket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, who called his attention tothe precious blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every boyhe encountered added another ton to his depression; and when, indesperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom of Huckleberry Finnand was received with a Scriptural quotation, his heart broke and hecrept home and to bed realizing that he alone of all the town was lost,forever and forever.

  And that night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain, awfulclaps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his headwith the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for his doom; forhe had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was about him.He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above to theextremity of endurance and that this was the result. It might haveseemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with abattery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about thegetting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf fromunder an insect like himself.

  By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing itsobject. The boy's first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. Hissecond was to wait--for there might not be any more storms.

  The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks hespent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroadat last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering howlonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He driftedlistlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in ajuvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of hervictim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating astolen melon. Poor lads! they--like Tom--had suffered a relapse.