Chapter 6 (Tom Sawyer (Full Cast))

01Chapter VI.

02Self-Examination.

03Dentistry.

04The Midnight Charm.

05Witches and Devils.

06Cautious Approaches.

07Happy Hours.

08Monday morning found Tom Sawyer miserable.

09Monday morning always found him so, because it began another week's slow suffering in school.

10He generally began that day with wishing he had had no intervening holiday.

11It made going into captivity and fetters again so much more odious.

12Tom lay thinking.

13Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was sick.

14Then he could stay home from school.

15Here was a vague possibility.

16He canvassed his system.

17No ailment was found, and he investigated again.

18This time he thought he could detect colicky symptoms, and he began to encourage them with considerable hope.

19But they soon grew feeble, and presently died wholly away.

20He reflected further.

21Suddenly he discovered something.

22One of his upper front teeth was loose.

23This was lucky.

24He was about to begin to groan, as a starter, as he called it, when it occurred to him that if he came into court with that argument, his aunt would pull it out, and that would hurt.

25So he thought he would hold the tooth in reserve for the present and seek further.

26Nothing offered for some little time, and then he remembered hearing the doctor tell about a certain thing that laid up a patient for two or three weeks, and threatened to make him lose a finger.

27So the boy eagerly drew his sore toe from under the sheet, and held it up for inspection.

28But now he did not know the necessary symptoms.

29However, it seemed well worthwhile to chance it.

30So he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.

31But Sid slept on unconscious.

32Tom groaned louder, and fancied that he began to feel pain in the toe.

33No result from Sid.

34Tom was panting with his exertions by this time.

35He took a rest, and then swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans.

36Sid snored on.

37Tom was aggravated.

38He said, Sid!

39Sid!

40Sid!

41and shook him.

42This course worked well, and Tom began to groan again.

43Sid yawned, stretched, then brought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare at Tom.

44Tom went on groaning.

45Sid said, Tom!

46Say, Tom!

47No response.

48Here, Tom!

49Tom!

50What is the matter, Tom?

51And he shook him, and looked in his face anxiously.

52Tom moaned out, Oh, don't, Sid!

53Don't juggle me!

54Why, what's the matter, Tom?

55I must call Auntie.

56No, never mind.

57It'll be over by and by, maybe.

58Don't call anybody.

59But I must.

60Don't groan so, Tom.

61It's awful.

62How long you been this way?

63Hours.

64Ouch!

65Oh, don't stir so, Sid.

66You'll kill me.

67Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner?

68Oh, Tom, don't.

69It makes my flesh crawl to hear you.

70Tom, what is the matter?

71I forgive you everything, Sid.

72Oh, everything you've ever done to me.

73When I'm gone.

74Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you?

75Don't, Tom.

76Oh, don't.

77Baby.

78I forgive everybody, Sid.

79Oh, tell them so, Sid.

80And Sid, you give my window sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that's come to town and tell her.

81But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone.

82Tom was suffering in reality now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so his groans had gathered quite a genuine tone.

83Sid flew downstairs and said, Oh, Aunt Polly, come.

84Tom's dying.

85Dying?

86Yes, m.

87Don't wait.

88Come quick.

89Rubbish.

90I don't believe it.

91But she fled upstairs nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels, and her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled.

92When she reached the bedside, she gasped out, You!

93Tom!

94Tom, what's the matter with you?

95Oh, Auntie, I'm— What's the matter with you?

96What is the matter with you, child?

97Oh, Auntie, my sore toe's mortified.

98The old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried a little, then did both together.

99This restored her, and she said, Tom, what a turn you did give me.

100Now you shut up that nonsense and climb out of this.

101The groans ceased, and the pain vanished from the toe.

102The boy felt a little foolish, and he said, Aunt Polly, it seemed mortified, and it hurt so I never minded my tooth at all.

103Your tooth, indeed.

104What's the matter with your tooth?

105One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful.

106There, there, now.

107Don't begin that groaning again.

108Open your mouth.

109Well, your tooth is loose, but you're not going to die about that.

110Mary, get me a silk thread and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen.

111Tom said, Oh, please, Auntie, don't pull it out.

112It don't hurt any more.

113I wish I may never stir if it does.

114Please don't, Auntie.

115I don't want to stay home from school.

116Oh, you don't, don't you?

117So all this row was because you thought you'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing.

118Tom, Tom, I love you so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart with your outrageousness.

119By this time the dental instruments were ready.

120The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's tooth with a loop, and tied the other to the bedpost.

121Then she seized the chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face.

122The tooth hung, dangling by the bedpost now.

123But all trials bring their compensations.

124As Tom went into school after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met, because the gap in his upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and admirable way.

125He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the exhibition, and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of fascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly without an adherent and shorn of his glory.

126His heart was heavy, and he said, with a disdain which he did not feel, that it wasn't anything to spit like Tom Sawyer.

127But another boy said, Sour grapes.

128And he wandered away, a dismantled hero.

129Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard.

130Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless and vulgar and bad, and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him.

131Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders not to play with him.

132So he played with him every time he got a chance.

133Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags.

134His hat was a vast ruin, with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim.

135His coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels, and had the rearward buttons far down the back.

136But one suspender supported his trousers.

137The seat of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged in the dirt when not rolled up.

138Huckleberry came and went at his own free will.

139He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and empty hogsheads in wet.

140He did not have to go to school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody.

141He could go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it suited him.

142Nobody forbade him to fight.

143He could sit up as late as he pleased.

144He was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring, and the last to resume leather in the fall.

145He never had to wash nor put on clean clothes.

146He could swear wonderfully.

147In a word, everything that goes to make life precious, that boy had.

148So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St.

149Petersburg.

150Tom hailed the romantic outcast.

151Hello, Huckleberry.

152Hello yourself and see how you like it.

153What's that you got?

154Dead cat.

155Let me see him, Huck.

156My, he's pretty stiff.

157Where'd you get him?

158Bought him off in a boy.

159What did you give?

160I gave a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughterhouse.

161Where'd you get the blue ticket?

162Bought it off in Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop stick.

163Say, what's dead cats good for, Huck?

164Good for?

165Cure warts with.

166No.

167Is that so?

168I know something that's better.

169I bet you don't.

170What is it?

171Why, spunk water.

172Spunk water?

173I wouldn't give a darn for spunk water.

174You wouldn't, wouldn't you?

175Do you ever try it?

176No, I ain't.

177But Bob Tanner did.

178Who told you so?

179Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnny told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, and the nigger told me.

180There now.

181Well, what of that?

182They all lie.

183Leastways all but the nigger.

184I don't know him, but I never see a nigger that wouldn't lie.

185Shucks.

186Now you tell how Bob Tanner done it, Huck.

187Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten stump where the rainwater was.

188In the daytime?

189Certainly.

190With his face to the stump?

191Yes.

192Least I reckon so.

193Did he say anything?

194I don't reckon he did.

195I don't know.

196Aha!

197Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk water such a blameful way as that.

198Why, that ain't a-going to do any good.

199You gotta go all by yourself to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a spunk water stump.

200And just as it's midnight, you back up against the stump and jam your hand in and say, Farleycorn, barleycorn, engine meal shorts, spunk water, spunk water, swallow these warts.

201And then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody.

202Because if you speak, the charm's busted.

203Well, that sounds like a good way, but it ain't the way Bob Tanner done.

204No, sir, you can bet he didn't, because he's the wartiest boy in this town, and he wouldn't have a wart on him if he'd known how to work spunk water.

205I've took off thousands of warts off my hands that way, Huck.

206I play with frogs so much I've always got considerable many warts.

207Sometimes I take them off with a bean.

208Yes, beans good.

209I've done that.

210Have you?

211What's your way?

212You take and split the bean, and cut the wart so as to get some blood, and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean, and take and dig a hole and bury it about midnight at the crossroads in the dark of the moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean.

213You see that piece that's got the blood on it will keep drying and drying, trying to fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the wart, and pretty soon off she comes.

214Yes, that's it, Huck, that's it.

215Though when you're burying it, if you say, down bean, off, or come no more to bother me, it's better.

216That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and most everywheres.

217But say, how do you cure them with dead cats?

218Why, you take your cat and go and get in the graveyard long about midnight, when somebody that was wicked has been buried.

219And when it's midnight, a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can't see him.

220You can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear him talk.

221And when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after him and say, Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm done with ye.

222That'll fetch any wart.

223Sounds right.

224You ever try it, Huck?

225No, but old Mother Hopkins told me.

226Well, I reckon it's so, then, cause they say she's a witch.

227Say, why, Tom, I know she is.

228She's witched Pap.

229Pap says so his own self.

230He come along one day, and he see she was a witching him, so he took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged, he'd a got her.

231Well, that very night, he rolled off in a shed where he was a lying drunk, and broke his arm.

232Well, that's awful.

233How did he know she was a witching him?

234Lord, Pap can tell easy.

235Pap says when they keep looking at you right steady, they're a witching you, specially if they mumble, because when they mumble, they're saying the Lord's Prayer backwards.

236Say, Hucky, when you gonna try the cat?

237Tonight.

238I reckon they'll come after old Hoss Williams tonight.

239But they buried him Saturday.

240Didn't they get him Saturday night?

241Why, how you talk?

242How could their charms work till midnight?

243And then it's Sunday.

244Devils don't slosh around much of a Sunday, I don't reckon.

245I never thought of that.

246That's so.

247Lemme go with you.

248Of course, if you ain't afeard.

249Afeard?

250Tain't likely.

251Will you meow?

252Yes, and you meow back if you get a chance.

253Last time you kept me a-meowing around till old Haze went to throwing rocks at me and says, Dern that cat.

254And so I hove a brick through his window.

255But don't you tell.

256I won't.

257I couldn't meow that night, because Auntie was watching me.

258But I'll meow this time.

259Say, what's that?

260Nothing but a tick.

261Where'd you get him?

262Out in the woods.

263What do you take for him?

264I don't know.

265I don't want to sell him.

266All right.

267It's a mighty small tick anyway.

268Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't belong to them.

269I'm satisfied with it.

270It's a good enough tick for me.

271Sure, there's ticks aplenty.

272I could have a thousand of them if I wanted to.

273Well, why don't you?

274Because you know mighty well you can't.

275This is a pretty early tick, I reckon.

276It's the first one I've seen this year.

277Say, Huck, I'll give you my tooth for him.

278Let's see it.

279Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it.

280Huckleberry viewed it wistfully.

281The temptation was very strong.

282At last, he said, Is it genuine?

283Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.

284Well, all right, said Huckleberry.

285It's a trade.

286Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion cap box that lately had been the Pinchbugs prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before.

287When Tom reached the little isolated frame schoolhouse, he strode in briskly with the manner of one who had come with all honest speed.

288He hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with businesslike alacrity.

289The master, thrown on high in his great splint-bottom armchair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study.

290The interruption roused him.

291Thomas Sawyer.

292Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in full it meant trouble.

293Sir.

294Come up here.

295Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?

296Tom was about to take refuge in a lie when he saw two long tails of yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric sympathy of love, and by that form was the only vacant place on the girl's side of the schoolhouse.

297He instantly said, I stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn.

298The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly.

299The buzz of study ceased.

300The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his mind.

301The master said, You—you did what?

302Stop to talk with Huckleberry Finn.

303There was no mistaking the words.

304Thomas Sawyer.

305This is the most astounding confession I have ever listened to.

306No mere ferrule will answer for this offense.

307Take off your jacket.

308The master's arm performed until it was tired, and the stock of switches notably diminished.

309Then the order followed.

310Now, sir, go and sit with the girls, and let this be a warning to you.

311The titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe of his unknown idol, and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good fortune.

312He sat down upon the end of the pine bench, and the girl hitched herself away from him with a toss of her head.

313When she cautiously faced around again, a peach lay before her.

314She thrust it away.

315Tom gently put it back.

316She thrust it away again, but with less animosity.

317Tom patiently returned it to its place.

318Then she let it remain.

319Tom scrawled on his slate.

320Please take it.

321I got more.

322The girl glanced at the words, but made no sign.

323Now the boy began to draw something on the slate, hiding his work with his left hand.

324For a time the girl refused to notice, but her human curiosity presently began to manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs.

325The boy worked on, apparently unconscious.

326The girl made a sort of non-committal attempt to see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it.

327At last she gave in, and hesitatingly whispered, Let me see it.

328Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable ends to it, and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney.

329Then the girl's interest began to fasten itself upon the work, and she forgot everything else.

330When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then whispered, It's nice.

331Make a man.

332The artist erected a man in the front yard that resembled a Derek.

333He could have stepped over the house, but the girl was not hypercritical.

334She was satisfied with the monster, and whispered, It's a beautiful man.

335Now make me coming along.

336Tom drew an hourglass with a full moon and straw limbs to it, and armed the spreading fingers with a portentous fan.

337The girl said, It's ever so nice.

338I wish I could draw.

339It's easy, whispered Tom.

340I'll learn you.

341Oh, will you?

342When?

343At noon.

344Do you go home to dinner?

345I'll stay if you will.

346Good.

347That's a whack.

348What's your name?

349Becky Thatcher.

350What's yours?

351Oh, I know.

352It's Thomas Sawyer.

353That's an end to lick me by.

354I'm Tom when I'm good.

355You call me Tom, will you?

356Yes.

357Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from the girl.

358But she was not backward this time.

359She begged to see.

360Tom said, Oh, it ain't anything.

361Yes, it is.

362No, it ain't.

363You don't want to see it.

364Yes, I do.

365Indeed, I do.

366Please let me.

367You'll tell.

368No, I won't.

369Deed and deed and double deed won't.

370You won't tell anybody at all, ever, as long as you live.

371No, I won't ever tell anybody.

372Now let me.

373Oh, you don't want to see.

374Now that you treat me so, I will see.

375She put her small hand upon his, and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest, but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed.

376I love you.

377Oh, you bad thing.

378And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened and looked pleased nevertheless.

379Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his ear, and a steady lifting impulse.

380In that wise, he was borne across the house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles from the whole school.

381Then the master stood over him during a few awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a word.

382But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.

383As the school quieted down, Tom made an honest effort to study, but the turmoil within him was too great.

384In turn, he took his place in the reading class, and made a bunch of it, then in the geography class, and turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into continents, till chaos was come again.

385Then in a spelling class, and got turned down by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought up at the foot, and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation for months.

386End of chapter 6