Chapter 1 (Tom Sawyer (Full Cast))

01Chapter I.

02You, Tom, Aunt Polly decides upon her duty, Tom practices music, the challenge, a private entrance.

03Tom?

04No answer.

05Tom?

06No answer.

07What's gone with that boy, I wonder?

08You, Tom?

09No answer.

10The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room.

11Then she put them up and looked out under them.

12She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy.

13They were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for style, not service.

14She could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.

15She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear.

16So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance, and shouted, You, Tom?

17There was a slight noise behind her, and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.

18There!

19I might have thought of that closet.

20What you been doing in there?

21Nothing.

22Nothing?

23Look at your hands, and look at your mouth.

24What is that truck?

25I don't know, aunt.

26Well, I know.

27It's jam, that's what it is.

28Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone, I'd skin you.

29Hand me that switch.

30The switch hovered in the air.

31The peril was desperate.

32My!

33Look behind you, aunt.

34The old lady whirled round and snatched her skirts out of danger.

35The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board fence, and disappeared over it.

36Aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.

37Ha!

38Hang the boy!

39Can't I never learn anything?

40Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time?

41But old fools is the biggest fools there is.

42Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is.

43But my goodness, he never plays them alike two days, and how is a body to know what's coming?

44He appears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up.

45And he knows if he can make me out to puff me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again, and I can't hit him a lick.

46I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows.

47Spare the rod and spile the child, as the good book says.

48I'm a-layin' up sin and sufferin' for us both, I know.

49He's full of the old scratch, but laws of me!

50He's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him somehow.

51Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him, my old heart most breaks.

52Well, oh well.

53Man that is born of woman is of a few days and full of trouble, as the scripture says, and I reckon it's so.

54He'll play hooky this evening, and I'll just be obliged to make him work tomorrow to punish him.

55It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays when all the boys is havin' holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child.

56Tom did play hooky, and he had a very good time.

57He got back home, barely in season, to help Jim, the small-coloured boy, saw next day's wood and split the kindlings before supper.

58At least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim, while Jim did three-fourths of the work.

59Tom's younger brother, or rather half-brother, Sid, was already through with his part of the work, picking up chips, for he was a quiet boy and had no adventurous troublesome ways.

60While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile and very deep, for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments.

61Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning.

62Said she, Tom, it was middling warm in school, weren't it?

63Yes, um.

64Powerful warm, weren't it?

65Yes, um.

66Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?

67A bit of a scare shot through Tom, a touch of uncomfortable suspicion.

68He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing.

69So he said, No, um.

70Well, not very much.

71The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said, But you ain't too warm now, though.

72And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry, without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind.

73But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay now.

74So he forestalled what might be the next move.

75Some of us pumped on our heads.

76Mine's damp yet, see?

77Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence and missed a trick.

78Then she had a new inspiration.

79Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it to pump on your head, did you?

80Unbutton your jacket.

81The trouble vanished out of Tom's face.

82He opened his jacket.

83His shirt collar was securely sewed.

84Bother.

85Well, go along with you.

86I'd made sure you'd played hooky and been a-swimming.

87But I forgive you, Tom.

88I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is.

89Better a new look.

90This time.

91She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.

92But Sidney said, Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread.

93But it's black.

94Why, I did sew it with white.

95Tom!

96But Tom did not wait for the rest.

97As he went out at the door, he said, Sidney, I'll lick you for that.

98In a safe place, Tom examined two large needles, which were thrust into the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them.

99One needle carried white thread, and the other black.

100He said, She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid.

101Confound it!

102Sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black.

103I wish to Jiminy she'd stick to one or t'other.

104I can't keep the run of him.

105But I bet you all lamb sit for that.

106I'll learn him.

107He was not the model boy of the village.

108He knew the model boy very well, though, and he loathed him.

109Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles.

110Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time, just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises.

111This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practice it undisturbed.

112It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music.

113The reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy.

114Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude.

115He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet.

116No doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.

117The summer evenings were long.

118It was not dark yet.

119Presently Tom checked his whistle.

120A stranger was before him, a boy a shade larger than himself.

121A newcomer of any age or either sex was an impressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St.

122Petersburg.

123This boy was well-dressed, too, well-dressed on a weekday.

124This was simply astounding.

125His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue-cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were the pantaloons.

126He had shoes on, and it was only Friday.

127He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon.

128He had a city-fied air about him that ate into Tom's vitals.

129The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery, and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow.

130Neither boy spoke.

131If one moved, the other moved, but only sideways, in a circle.

132They kept face to face and eye to eye all the time.

133Finally, Tom said, I can lick you.

134I'd like to see you try it.

135Well, I can do it.

136No, you can't either.

137Yes, I can.

138No, you can't.

139I can.

140You can't.

141Can.

142Can't.

143An uncomfortable pause.

144Then Tom said, What's your name?

145Tisn't any of your business, maybe.

146Well, I allow I'll make it my business.

147Well, why don't you?

148If you say much, I will.

149Much.

150Much.

151Much.

152There now.

153Oh, you think you're mighty smart, don't you?

154I could lick you with one hand tied behind me if I wanted to.

155Well, why don't you do it?

156You say you can do it.

157Well, I will if you fool with me.

158Oh, yes.

159I've seen whole families in the same fix.

160Smarty, you think you're some now, don't you?

161Oh, what a hat.

162You can lump that hat if you don't like it.

163I dare you to knock it off.

164And anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs.

165You're a liar.

166You're another.

167You're a fighting liar and doesn't take it up.

168Ah, take a walk.

169Say, if you give me much more of your sass, I'll take and bounce a rock off in your head.

170Oh, of course you will.

171Well, I will.

172Well, why don't you do it then?

173What do you keep saying you will for?

174Why don't you do it?

175It's because you're afraid.

176I ain't afraid.

177You are.

178I ain't.

179You are.

180Another pause and more eyeing and sidling around each other.

181Presently they were shoulder to shoulder.

182Tom said, Get away from here.

183Go away yourself.

184I won't.

185I won't either.

186So they stood, each with the foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate.

187But neither could get an advantage.

188After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution.

189And Tom said, You're a coward and a pup.

190I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash you with his little finger.

191And I'll make him do it, too.

192What do I care for you, big brother?

193I've got a brother that's bigger than he is.

194And what's more, he can throw him over a fence, too.

195Both brothers were imaginary.

196That's a lie.

197You're saying so.

198Don't make it so.

199Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said, I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand up.

200Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep.

201The new boy stepped over promptly, and said, Now you said you'd do it.

202Now let's see you do it.

203Don't you crowd me now.

204You better look out.

205Well, you said you'd do it.

206Why don't you do it?

207By Jingo, for two cents I will do it.

208The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket, and held them out with derision.

209Tom struck them to the ground.

210In an instant, both boys were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats, and for the space of a minute, they tugged and tore at each other's hair and clothes, punched and scratched each other's nose, and covered themselves with dust and glory.

211Presently the confusion took form, and through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him with his fists.

212How enough!

213said he.

214The boy only struggled to free himself.

215He was crying, mainly from rage.

216How enough!

217And the pounding went on.

218At last the stranger got out a smothered, Nuff!

219And Tom led him up, and said, Now that'll learn you.

220Better look out who you're fooling with next time.

221The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head, and threatening what he would do to Tom the next time he caught him out.

222To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather, and as soon as his back was turned, the new boy snatched up a stone, threw it, and hit him between the shoulders, and then turned tail and ran like an antelope.

223Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he lived.

224He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy to come outside.

225But the enemy only made faces at him through the window, and declined.

226At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away.

227So he went away, but he said he allowed to lay for that boy.

228He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade in the person of his aunt, and when she saw the state his clothes were in, her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labour, became adamantine in its firmness.

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