The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

CHAPTER I. Y-o-u-u Tom-Aunt Polly Decides Upon her Duty —Tom Practices Music—The Challenge—A Private Entrance CHAPTER II. Strong Temptations—Strategic Movements —The Innocents Beguiled CHAPTER III. Tom as a General—Triumph and Reward —Dismal Felicity—Commission and Omission CHAPTER IV. Mental Acrobatics—Attending Sunday—School —The Superintendent—“Showing off”—Tom Lionized CHAPTER V. A Useful Minister—In Church—The Climax CHAPTER VI. Self-Examination—Dentistry—The Midnight Charm —Witches and Devils—Cautious Approaches—Happy Hours CHAPTER VII. A Treaty Entered Into—Early Lessons—A Mistake Made CHAPTER VIII. Tom Decides on his Course—Old Scenes Re-enacted CHAPTER IX. A Solemn Situation—Grave Subjects Introduced —Injun Joe Explains CHAPTER X. The Solemn Oath—Terror Brings Repentance —Mental Punishment CHAPTER XI. Muff Potter Comes Himself—Tom’s Conscience at Work CHAPTER XII. Tom Shows his Generosity—Aunt Polly Weakens CHAPTER XIII. The Young Pirates—Going to the Rendezvous —T

“TOM!”No answer.“TOM!”No answer.“What’s gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!”No answer.The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for “style,” not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:“Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll—”She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.“I never did see the beat of that boy!”She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and “jimpson” weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her

TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom, breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing murmur of 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. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had thought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing him place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: “Mayn’t I 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 see for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of Tom’s statement true. When she found the entire fence white-wa

ABOUT half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to ring, and presently the people began to gather for the morning sermon. The Sunday-school children distributed themselves about the house and occupied pews with their parents, so as to be under supervision. Aunt Polly came, and Tom and Sid and Mary sat with her—Tom being placed next the aisle, in order that he might be as far away from the open window and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible. The crowd filed up the aisles: the aged and needy postmaster, who had seen better days; the mayor and his wife—for they had a mayor there, among other unnecessaries; the justice of the peace; the widow Douglass, fair, smart, and forty, a generous, good-hearted soul and well-to-do, her hill mansion the only palace in the town, and the most hospitable and much the most lavish in the matter of festivities that St. Petersburg could boast; the bent and venerable Major and Mrs. Ward; lawyer Riverson, the new notable from a dista

THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It seemed to him that the noon recess would never come. The air was utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees. Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep. Tom’s heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time. His hand wandered into his pocket and his face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it. Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put him on the long flat desk