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HOW TOM SAWYER WHITEWASHED THE FENCE

MARK TWAIN

Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. 10 Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a longhandled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his 20 spirit. Thirty yards of board fence

nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed, it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. 30 Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing "Buffalo Gals." Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings,

quarreling, fighting, skylarking. And 40 he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour-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 50 tole me I got to go an' git dis water an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She says she spec' Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to my own business-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 60 be gone only a minute. She won't ever know."

"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 anybodywhacks 'em over the head with her thimble and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but talk don't hurt-anyways it don't if 70 she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you a marvel. 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 down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his 10 pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.

But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of 20 delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work-the very thought of it burned him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined itbits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of work," maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened 30 means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.

brush and went

He took up his tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently-the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been 40 dreading. Ben's gait was the hopskip-and-jump-proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As

he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned

far over to starboard and rounded-to 50 ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance-for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:

"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" 60 The headway ran almost out and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

"Ship up to back! Ting-a-lingling!" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.

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

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"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-lingling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-aling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! Lively now! Come so out with your spring-line-what're you about there? Take a turn around that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now-let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-aling-ling! Sh't! Sh't! Sh't!" (trying the gauge-cocks).

Tom went on whitewashing-paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a 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; then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the

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"Say I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? 10 But of course 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 Tom 20 Sawyer."

"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 Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom 30 swept his brush daintily back and forth-stepped back to note the effect -added a touch here and there criticized the effect again-Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."

Tom considered, was about to con40 sent; but he altered his mind:

"No-no-I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence right here on the street, you knowbut if it was the back fence, I wouldn't mind and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, may

be two thousand, that can do it the 50 way it's got to be done."

"No-is that so? Oh, come, nowlemme 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 do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now, don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle 60 this fence and anything was to happen to it "

"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say-I'll give you the 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 his 70 heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was 80 fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with-and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, besides 99 the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jew's-harp, a piece of blue bottle glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a kitten with only one eye,

a brass door-knob, a dog-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-and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Of

1. For a brief biography of Mark Twain (and for all authors throughout this book) see the "Biographical Index of Authors" beginning on page 571 and arranged alphabetically. This selection is taken from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, one of three books (the others being Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi) in which Mark Twain rendered probably his greatest service to American literature. these Huckleberry Finn is the best; its hero has been compared with the hero of Homer's Odyssey, about whom you will read in Part II of this book, and indeed Mark Twain's book deserves very well the name that has been given it, "the Odyssean story of the Mississippi." The three books taken together give something of the impression of an epic of the valley of the great river which is so bound up with American life. The stories perhaps seem even more characteristic of what we feel to be America than any stories of the early colonization of the eastern states. The Mississippi territory was settled by Americans, not by Englishmen, at a time when the genuine American character was being developed by the pioneers. The life that Mark Twain depicts is passing, but it is still near enough to us to be vivid, much as the story of Ulysses seemed to the Greeks in Homer's day.

2. Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel L. Clemens, wrote much about boys, for boys of all ages. A proof of the fascination of his stories is found in the fact that Charles Darwin, the great English scientist, said that he always kept the story of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog" (see Junior High School Literature, Book 1) on a chair by his bedside so that he might

turn to it in case of sleeplessness. Mark Twain is commonly thought of as a great jester, and indeed no other writer represents so fully the sort of humor that most appeals to Americans. But he is not merely a jester. He is an interpreter of many of the ideas and experiences that have formed the American character.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Give another title to this story. What was the "magnificent inspiration" that came to Tom when he was discouraged at having to work on Saturday? How did Tom Sawyer whitewash the fence?

2. What great law of human action, as regards work and play, did Tom discover from his experience in whitewashing the fence? Can you give examples, similar to Tom's, showing how work may be changed to play, or play to work?

3. Why do you like this story? What makes the story humorous? How does the author make his characters known to you, by what they do or by what they say? Is the dialogue lifelike? What other stories by this great humorist have you read?

4. What humorous stories of other writers have you read? Compare one of the best with this selection.

Library Reading. This selection is merely an episode in the story of Tom Sawyer. You will enjoy reading the entire book. You will also find The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelow Paine, a fascinating introduction to further readings from Mark Twain, the great American humorist.

10

A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG CHARLES LAMB

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the 10 second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally, the Cook's holiday. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following: The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods 20 one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bobo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are. let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to 30 ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may

10. Mundane Mutations, perhaps a reference to The Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese book preserved and transmitted by Confucius, the celebrated Chinese philosopher.

think, not so much for the sake of the 40 tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he 50 had before experienced. What could it proceed from? Not from the burnt cottage he had smelled that smell before-indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time 60 overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for 70 before him no man had known it) he tasted-crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding-that it was the pig that smelled so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and, surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, so he fell to tearing up whole handfuls

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