The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Page 37

  CHAPTER XXXV

  THE reader may rest satisfied that Tom's and Huck's windfall made amighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. So vast asum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible. It was talkedabout, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the citizenstottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement. Every "haunted"house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was dissected,plank by plank, and its foundations dug up and ransacked for hiddentreasure--and not by boys, but men--pretty grave, unromantic men, too,some of them. Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were courted, admired,stared at. The boys were not able to remember that their remarks hadpossessed weight before; but now their sayings were treasured andrepeated; everything they did seemed somehow to be regarded asremarkable; they had evidently lost the power of doing and sayingcommonplace things; moreover, their past history was raked up anddiscovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality. The village paperpublished biographical sketches of the boys.

  The Widow Douglas put Huck's money out at six per cent., and JudgeThatcher did the same with Tom's at Aunt Polly's request. Each lad hadan income, now, that was simply prodigious--a dollar for every weekday inthe year and half of the Sundays. It was just what the minister got--no,it was what he was promised--he generally couldn't collect it. A dollarand a quarter a week would board, lodge, and school a boy in those oldsimple days--and clothe him and wash him, too, for that matter.

  Judge Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom. He said that nocommonplace boy would ever have got his daughter out of the cave. WhenBecky told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had taken herwhipping at school, the Judge was visibly moved; and when she pleadedgrace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift thatwhipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fineoutburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie--a lie thatwas worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast tobreast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet! Beckythought her father had never looked so tall and so superb as when hewalked the floor and stamped his foot and said that. She went straightoff and told Tom about it.

  Judge Thatcher hoped to see Tom a great lawyer or a great soldier someday. He said he meant to look to it that Tom should be admitted to theNational Military Academy and afterward trained in the best law schoolin the country, in order that he might be ready for either career orboth.

  Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas'protection introduced him into society--no, dragged him into it, hurledhim into it--and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. Thewidow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed, and theybedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had not one little spotor stain which he could press to his heart and know for a friend. He hadto eat with a knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate;he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk soproperly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever heturned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound himhand and foot.

  He bravely bore his miseries three weeks, and then one day turned upmissing. For forty-eight hours the widow hunted for him everywhere ingreat distress. The public were profoundly concerned; they searched highand low, they dragged the river for his body. Early the third morningTom Sawyer wisely went poking among some old empty hogsheads down behindthe abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them he found the refugee.Huck had slept there; he had just breakfasted upon some stolen odds andends of food, and was lying off, now, in comfort, with his pipe. He wasunkempt, uncombed, and clad in the same old ruin of rags that had madehim picturesque in the days when he was free and happy. Tom routed himout, told him the trouble he had been causing, and urged him to go home.Huck's face lost its tranquil content, and took a melancholy cast. Hesaid:

  "Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don'twork, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to me,and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up justat the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me allto thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear themblamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any airgit through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can'tset down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on acellar-door for--well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to churchand sweat and sweat--I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly inthere, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats bya bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell--everything's soawful reg'lar a body can't stand it."

  "Well, everybody does that way, Huck."

  "Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't_stand_ it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy--I don'ttake no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a-fishing;I got to ask to go in a-swimming--dern'd if I hain't got to ask to doeverything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort--I'd gotto go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a tastein my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me smoke;she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor stretch, norscratch, before folks--" [Then with a spasm of special irritation andinjury]--"And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such awoman! I _had_ to shove, Tom--I just had to. And besides, that school'sgoing to open, and I'd a had to go to it--well, I wouldn't stand _that_,Tom. Looky-here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It'sjust worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was deadall the time. Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, andI ain't ever going to shake 'em any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got intoall this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just takemy sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes--notmany times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollablehard to git--and you go and beg off for me with the widder."

  "Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that. 'Tain't fair; and besides if you'lltry this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it."

  "Like it! Yes--the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it longenough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussedsmothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, andI'll stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a cave,and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to come upand spile it all!"

  Tom saw his opportunity--

  "Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turningrobber."

  "No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?"

  "Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let youinto the gang if you ain't respectable, you know."

  Huck's joy was quenched.

  "Can't let me in, Tom? Didn't you let me go for a pirate?"

  "Yes, but that's different. A robber is more high-toned than what apirate is--as a general thing. In most countries they're awful high up inthe nobility--dukes and such."

  "Now, Tom, hain't you always ben friendly to me? You wouldn't shet meout, would you, Tom? You wouldn't do that, now, _would_ you, Tom?"

  "Huck, I wouldn't want to, and I _don't_ want to--but what would peoplesay? Why, they'd say, 'Mph! Tom Sawyer's Gang! pretty low characters init!' They'd mean you, Huck. You wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't."

  Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally hesaid:

  "Well, I'll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if Ican come to stand it, if you'll let me b'long to the gang, Tom."

  "All right, Huck, it's a whiz! Come along, old chap, and I'll ask thewidow to let up on you a little, Huck."

  "Will you, Tom--now will you? That's good. If she'll let up on some ofthe roughest things, I'll smoke private and cuss private, and crowdthrough or bust. When you going to start the gang and turn robbers?"

  "Oh, right off. We'll get the boys together and have the initiationtonight, maybe."

  "Have t
he which?"

  "Have the initiation."

  "What's that?"

  "It's to swear to stand by one another, and never tell the gang'ssecrets, even if you're chopped all to flinders, and kill anybody andall his family that hurts one of the gang."

  "That's gay--that's mighty gay, Tom, I tell you."

  "Well, I bet it is. And all that swearing's got to be done at midnight,in the lonesomest, awfulest place you can find--a ha'nted house is thebest, but they're all ripped up now."

  "Well, midnight's good, anyway, Tom."

  "Yes, so it is. And you've got to swear on a coffin, and sign it withblood."

  "Now, that's something _like_! Why, it's a million times bullier thanpirating. I'll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom; and if I git to bea reg'lar ripper of a robber, and everybody talking 'bout it, I reckonshe'll be proud she snaked me in out of the wet."

  CONCLUSION

  SO endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a _boy_, itmust stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming thehistory of a _man_. When one writes a novel about grown people, he knowsexactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he writes ofjuveniles, he must stop where he best can.

  Most of the characters that perform in this book still live, and areprosperous and happy. Some day it may seem worth while to take up thestory of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women theyturned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of thatpart of their lives at present.
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