by Mark Twain
CHAPTER III
TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an openwindow 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 drowsing murmurof the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her knitting--for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her lap. Herspectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had thoughtthat of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing himplace himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: "Mayn'tI 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 seefor herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent.of Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence whitewashed,and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and evena streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable.She said:
"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you'rea mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding, "Butit's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'longand play; 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 tohim, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor atreat took 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 bythe back of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond thereach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public squareof the village, where two "military" companies of boys had met forconflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one ofthese armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. Thesetwo great commanders did not condescend to fight in person--that beingbetter suited 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 yellow hairplaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroideredpantalettes. 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 shehad discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present,and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order towin her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for sometime; but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerousgymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girlwas wending her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence andleaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer.She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tomheaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his facelit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a momentbefore she disappeared.
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 as ifhe 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; finallyhis bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and hehopped away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. Butonly for a minute--only while he could button the flower inside hisjacket, next his heart--or next his stomach, possibly, for he was notmuch posted in anatomy, 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"what had got into the child." He took a good scolding about cloddingSid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugarunder his aunt'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 hisimmunity, reached for the sugar-bowl--a sort of glorying over Tom whichwas wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl droppedand broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he evencontrolled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he wouldnot speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectlystill till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, andthere would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model"catch it." He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly holdhimself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreckdischarging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said tohimself, "Now it's coming!" And the next instant he was sprawling onthe floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom criedout:
"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting ME for?--Sid broke it!"
Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. Butwhen she 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 give he
r backher boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would liethere cold and white and make no sign--a poor little sufferer, whosegriefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathosof these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like tochoke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when hewinked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such aluxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bearto have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it;it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousinMary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after anage-long visit of one week to the country, he got up and moved inclouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and sunshine inat the