LITMIR.BIZ

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just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

      Tom appeared on the side-walk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence and the gladness went out of nature, and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board-fence nine feet high! It seemed to him that life was 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, Ma’rs 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’ Ma’rs Tom gwyne 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 minute. She won’t ever know.’

      ‘Oh, I dasn’t, Ma’rs 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 marble. 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, Ma’rs Tom, I’s powerful ’fraid ole missis.’

      ‘And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.’

      But Jim was only human – this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley. In another minute he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigour, 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 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! Ling-a-ling-ling.’ The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the side-walk. ‘Ship up to back! Ling-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 meantime describing stately circles, for it was representing a forty-foot wheel. ‘Let her go back on the labboard! Ling-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!’ The left hand began to describe circles.

      ‘Stop the stabboard! Ling-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ling-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that headline! 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! Ling-a-ling-ling!

      ‘Sht! s’sht! sht!’ (trying the gauge-cocks.)

      Tom went on whitewashing – paid no attention to the steamer. 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:

      ‘Hallo, old chap; you got to work, hey?’

      ‘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 – 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 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 am 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

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