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20

      Tom arrived at home in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt said to him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an unpromising market:

      "Tom, I've a notion to skin you alive!"

      "Auntie, what have I done?"

      "Well, you've done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like an old softy, expecting I'm going to make her believe all that rubbage about that dream, when lo and behold you she'd found out from Joe that you was over here and heard all the talk we had that night. Tom, I don't know what is to become of a boy that will act like that. It makes me feel so bad to think you could let me go to Sereny Harper and make such a fool of myself and never say a word."

      This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had seemed to Tom a good joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked mean and shabby now. He hung his head and could not think of anything to say for a moment. Then he said:

      "Auntie, I wish I hadn't done it — but I didn't think."

      "Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from Jackson's Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn't ever think to pity us and save us from sorrow."

      "Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn't mean to be mean. I didn't, honest. And besides, I didn't come over here to laugh at you that night."

      "What did you come for, then?"

      "It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn't got drownded."

      "Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never did — and I know it, Tom."

      "Indeed and 'deed I did, auntie — I wish I may never stir if I didn't."

      "Oh, Tom, don't lie — don't do it. It only makes things a hundred times worse."

      "It ain't a lie, auntie; it's the truth. I wanted to keep you from grieving — that was all that made me come."

      "I'd give the whole world to believe that — it would cover up a power of sins, Tom. I'd 'most be glad you'd run off and acted so bad. But it ain't reasonable; because, why didn't you tell me, child?"

      "Why, you see, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got all full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I couldn't somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my pocket and kept mum."

      "What bark?"

      "The bark I had wrote on to tell you we'd gone pirating. I wish, now, you'd waked up when I kissed you — I do, honest."

      The hard lines in his aunt's face relaxed and a sudden tenderness dawned in her eyes.

      "Did you kiss me, Tom?"

      "Why, yes, I did."

      "Are you sure you did, Tom?"

      "Why, yes, I did, auntie — certain sure."

      "What did you kiss me for, Tom?"

      "Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry."

      The words sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor in her voice when she said:

      "Kiss me again, Tom! — and be off with you to school, now, and don't bother me any more."

      The moment he was gone, she ran to a closet and got out the ruin of a jacket which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with it in her hand, and said to herself:

      "No, I don't dare. Poor boy, I reckon he's lied about it — but it's a blessed, blessed lie, there's such a comfort come from it. I hope the Lord — I know the Lord will forgive him, because it was such good-heartedness in him to tell it. But I don't want to find out it's a lie. I won't look."

      She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. Twice she put out her hand to take the garment again, and twice she refrained. Once more she ventured, and this time she fortified herself with the thought: "It's a good lie — it's a good lie — I won't let it grieve me." So she sought the jacket pocket. A moment later she was reading Tom's piece of bark through flowing tears and saying: "I could forgive the boy, now, if he'd committed a million sins!"

      Chapter 21

      There was something about Aunt Polly's manner, when she kissed Tom, that swept away his low spirits and made him light-hearted and happy again. He started to school and had the luck of coming upon Becky Thatcher at the head of Meadow Lane. His mood always determined his manner. Without a moment's hesitation he ran to her and said:

      "I acted mighty mean to-day, Becky, and I'm so sorry. I won't ever, ever do that way again, as long as ever I live — please make up, won't you?"

      The girl stopped and looked him scornfully in the face:

      "I'll thank you to keep yourself to yourself, Mr. Thomas Sawyer. I'll never speak to you again."

      She tossed her head and passed on. Tom was so stunned that he had not even presence of mind enough to say "Who cares, Miss Smarty?" until the right time to say it had gone by. So he said nothing. But he was in a fine rage, nevertheless. He moped into the schoolyard wishing she were a boy, and imagining how he would trounce her if she were. He presently encountered her and delivered a stinging remark as he passed. She hurled one in return, and the angry breach was complete. It seemed to Becky, in her hot resentment, that she could hardly wait for school to "take in," she was so impatient to see Tom flogged for the injured spelling-book. If she had had any lingering notion of exposing Alfred Temple, Tom's offensive fling had driven it entirely away.

      Poor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself. The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied ambition. The darling of his desires was, to be a doctor, but poverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village schoolmaster. Every day he took a mysterious book out of his desk and absorbed himself in it at times when no classes were reciting. He kept that book under lock and key. There was not an urchin in school but was perishing to have a glimpse of it, but the chance never came. Every boy and girl had a theory about the nature of that book; but no two theories were alike, and there was no way of getting at the facts in the case. Now, as Becky was passing by the desk, which stood near the door, she noticed that the key was in the lock! It was a precious moment. She glanced around; found herself alone, and the next instant she had the book in her hands. The title-page — Professor Somebody's Anatomy — carried no information to her mind; so she began to turn the leaves. She came at once upon a handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece — a human figure, stark naked. At that moment a shadow fell on the page and Tom Sawyer stepped in at the door and caught a glimpse of the picture. Becky snatched at the book to close it, and had the hard luck to tear the pictured page half down the middle. She thrust the volume into the desk, turned the key, and burst out crying with shame and vexation.

      "Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a person and look at what they're looking at."

      "How could I know you was looking at anything?"

      "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Sawyer; you know you're going to tell on me, and oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! I'll be whipped, and I never was whipped in school."

      Then she stamped her little foot and said:

      "Be so mean if you want to! I know something that's going to happen. You just wait and you'll see! Hateful, hateful, hateful!" — and she flung out of the house with a new explosion of crying.

      Tom stood still, rather flustered by this onslaught. Presently he said to himself:

      "What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school! Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl — they're so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. Well, of course I ain't going to tell old Dobbins on this little fool, because there's

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