第 二 章 · CHAPTER II. Strong Temptations—Strategic Movements—The Innocents

. CHAPTER II. Strong Temptations—Strategic Movements—The Innocents

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. 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

long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and

a deep melancholy settled down upon his 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. 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, quarrelling, fighting,

skylarking. And 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 tole me I got to go an’ git dis water

an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She say 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 be gone only a 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 anybody—whacks ’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 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 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 delicious expeditions, and

they would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very

thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and

examined it—bits 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 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.

He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in

sight presently—the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been

dreading. Ben’s gait was the hop-skip-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-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 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!” The headway ran almost out, and he

drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

“Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!” 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, mean-time, describing stately circles—for it was

representing a forty-foot wheel.

“Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!”

The left hand began to describe circles.

“Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on

the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow!

Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! _lively_ now!

Come—out with your spring-line—what’re you about there! Take a turn

round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now—let her

go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH’T! S’H’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

apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:

“Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?”

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

“Why, it’s you, Ben! I warn’t noticing.”

“Say—I’m going in a-swimming, I am. Don’t you wish you could? 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

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 a

chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple.

Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the

effect—added a touch here and there—criticised 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 consent; 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 know—but 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, maybe two thousand, that can do it

the way it’s got to be done.”

“No—is that so? Oh come, now—lemme 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 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

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 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, 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 the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part

of a jews-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 fire-crackers, 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.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He

had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely,

that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary

to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and

wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have

comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is _obliged_ to do,

and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And

this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or

performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing

Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England

who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a

daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable

money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn

it into work and then they would resign.

The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place

in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to

report.