The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Page 4

  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 only a hundredand fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under anhour--and even then somebody generally had to go after him. 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 dis wateran' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars Tom gwineto ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to my ownbusiness--she 'lowed _she'd_ 'tend to de whitewashin'."

  "Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always talks.Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only a a minute. _She_ won't everknow."

  "Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me.'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 you amarvel. 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 hewas flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom waswhitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field witha 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 an exchangeof _work_, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hourof pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, andgave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopelessmoment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great,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 laborious pompand circumstance--for he was personating the Big Missouri, and consideredhimself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain andengine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his ownhurricane-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 and stiffeneddown his sides.

  "Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow!Chow!" His right hand, mean-time, describing stately circles--for it wasrepresenting a forty-foot wheel.

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

  "Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead onthe 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 withyour spring-line--what're you about there! Take a turn round that stumpwith the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now--let her go! Done withthe engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!" (trying thegauge-cocks).

  Tom went on whitewashing--paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stareda 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 get achance to whitewash a fence every day?"

  That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple.Tom swept 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's awfulparticular about this fence--right here on the street, you know--but if itwas the back fence I wouldn't mind and _she_ wouldn't. Yes, she's awfulparticular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckonthere ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do itthe way it's got to be done."

  "No--is that so? Oh come, now--lemme just try. Only just a little--I'd let_you_, if you was me, Tom."

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

  "Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say--I'll give youthe 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 in thesun, 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 wa
s 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, hourafter hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being apoor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling inwealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, partof a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spoolcannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, aglass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles,six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, adog-collar--but no dog--the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel,and a dilapidated old window sash.

  He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while--plenty of company--andthe fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out ofwhitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

  Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. Hehad discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely,that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessaryto make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great andwise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now havecomprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is _obliged_ to do,and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. Andthis would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers orperforming on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbingMont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in Englandwho drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on adaily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerablemoney; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turnit into work and then they would resign.

  The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken placein his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters toreport.