Summarize in plain English: CHAPTER I.
Looking-Glass house
One thing was certain, that the _white_ kitten had had nothing to do
with it:—it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the white kitten
had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of
an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it
_couldn’t_ have had any hand in the mischief.
The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first she held the
poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw
she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and
just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which
was lying quite still and trying to purr—no doubt feeling that it was
all meant for its good.
But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon,
and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great
arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been
having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been
trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all
come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all
knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the
middle.
“Oh, you wicked little thing!” cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and
giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace.
“Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You _ought_,
Dinah, you know you ought!” she added, looking reproachfully at the old
cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she
scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted
with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get on
very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten,
and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee,
pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then
putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be
glad to help, if it might.
“Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?” Alice began. “You’d have
guessed if you’d been up in the window with me—only Dinah was making
you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was watching the boys getting in sticks
for the bonfire—and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so
cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll
go and see the bonfire to-morrow.” Here Alice wound two or three turns
of the worsted round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look:
this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor,
and yards and yards of it got unwound again.
“Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,” Alice went on as soon as they
were comfortably settled again, “when I saw all the mischief you had
been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out
into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you little mischievous
darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don’t interrupt
me!” she went on, holding up one finger. “I’m going to tell you all
your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing
your face this morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you!
What’s that you say?” (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) “Her
paw went into your eye? Well, that’s _your_ fault, for keeping your
eyes open—if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have happened. Now
don’t make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled
Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk
before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she
wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the
worsted while I wasn’t looking!
“That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished for any of
them yet. You know I’m saving up all your punishments for Wednesday
week—Suppose they had saved up all _my_ punishments!” she went on,
talking more to herself than the kitten. “What _would_ they do at the
end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day
came. Or—let me see—suppose each punishment was to be going without a
dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without
fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn’t mind _that_ much! I’d far
rather go without them than eat them!
“Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and
soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over
outside. I wonder if the snow _loves_ the trees and fields, that it
kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with
a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the
summer comes again.’ And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they
dress themselves all in green, and dance about—whenever the wind
blows—oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of
worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so _wish_ it was true! I’m sure
the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.
“Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t smile, my dear, I’m asking it
seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as
if you understood it: and when I said ‘Check!’ you purred! Well, it
_was_ a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn’t
been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces.
Kitty, dear, let’s pretend—” And here I wish I could tell you half the
things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase “Let’s
pretend.” She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the
day before—all because Alice had begun with “Let’s pretend we’re kings
and queens;” and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued
that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them, and Alice had
been reduced at last to say, “Well, _you_ can be one of them then, and
_I’ll_ be all the rest.” And once she had really frightened her old
nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, “Nurse! Do let’s pretend that
I’m a hungry hyaena, and you’re a bone.”
But this is taking us away from Alice’s speech to the kitten. “Let’s
pretend that you’re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you
sat up and folded your arms, you’d look exactly like her. Now do try,
there’s a dear!” And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it
up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing
didn’t succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn’t
fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the
Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was—“and if you’re not
good directly,” she added, “I’ll put you through into Looking-glass
House. How would you like _that_?”
“Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I’ll tell you
all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there’s the room you can
see through the glass—that’s just the same as our drawing room, only
the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a
chair—all but the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could
see _that_ bit! I want so much to know whether they’ve a fire in the
winter: you never _can_ tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and
then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence,
just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are
something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that,
because I’ve held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold
up one in the other room.
“How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if
they’d give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn’t good to
drink—But oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a
little _peep_ of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the
door of our drawing-room wide open: and it’s very like our passage as
far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond.
Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into
Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in
it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow,
Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we
can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare!
It’ll be easy enough to get through—” She was up on the chimney-piece
while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And
certainly the glass _was_ beginning to melt away, just like a bright
silvery mist.
In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly
down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to
look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite
pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as
the one she had left behind. “So I shall be as warm here as I was in
the old room,” thought Alice: “warmer, in fact, because there’ll be no
one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, when
they see me through the glass in here, and can’t get at me!”
Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from
the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest
was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall
next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the
chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the
Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at
her.
“They don’t keep this room so tidy as the other,” Alice thought to
herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth
among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little “Oh!” of
surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The
chessmen were walking about, two and two!
“Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,” Alice said (in a whisper,
for fear of frightening them), “and there are the White King and the
White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel—and here are two castles
walking arm in arm—I don’t think they can hear me,” she went on, as she
put her head closer down, “and I’m nearly sure they can’t see me. I
feel somehow as if I were invisible—”
Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her
turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and
begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would
happen next.
“It is the voice of my child!” the White Queen cried out as she rushed
past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the
cinders. “My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!” and she began
scrambling wildly up the side of the fender.
“Imperial fiddlestick!” said the King, rubbing his nose, which had been
hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a _little_ annoyed with the
Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.
Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily was
nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen
and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little daughter.
The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the air had
quite taken away her breath and for a minute or two she could do
nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as she had
recovered her breath a little, she called out to the White King, who
was sitting sulkily among the ashes, “Mind the volcano!”
“What volcano?” said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire, as
if he thought that was the most likely place to find one.
“Blew—me—up,” panted the Queen, who was still a little out of breath.
“Mind you come up—the regular way—don’t get blown up!”
Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to bar,
till at last she said, “Why, you’ll be hours and hours getting to the
table, at that rate. I’d far better help you, hadn’t I?” But the King
took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could
neither hear her nor see her.
So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more slowly
than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his breath away:
but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as well
dust him a little, he was so covered with ashes.
She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a face
as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an invisible
hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry out, but
his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder
and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let
him drop upon the floor.
“Oh! _please_ don’t make such faces, my dear!” she cried out, quite
forgetting that the King couldn’t hear her. “You make me laugh so that
I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep your mouth so wide open! All the
ashes will get into it—there, now I think you’re tidy enough!” she
added, as she smoothed his hair, and set him upon the table near the
Queen.
The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay perfectly still:
and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and went round the
room to see if she could find any water to throw over him. However, she
could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it
she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together
in a frightened whisper—so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they
said.
The King was saying, “I assure, you my dear, I turned cold to the very
ends of my whiskers!”
To which the Queen replied, “You haven’t got any whiskers.”
“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, _never_
forget!”
“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of
it.”
Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an enormous
memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought
struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some
way over his shoulder, and began writing for him.
The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the pencil
for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too strong for
him, and at last he panted out, “My dear! I really _must_ get a thinner
pencil. I can’t manage this one a bit; it writes all manner of things
that I don’t intend—”
“What manner of things?” said the Queen, looking over the book (in
which Alice had put “_The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He
balances very badly_”) “That’s not a memorandum of _your_ feelings!”
There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat
watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him,
and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case he fainted again),
she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read,
“—for it’s all in some language I don’t know,” she said to herself.
It was like this.
.YKCOWREBBAJ
sevot yhtils eht dna, gillirb sawT’
ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
     ,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought
struck her. “Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold
it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.”
This was the poem that Alice read.
JABBERWOCKY.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
    The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
    Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
    And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
    The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
    And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
    The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
    He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
    He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.
“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s
_rather_ hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess, even
to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to
fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!
However, _somebody_ killed _something_: that’s clear, at any rate—”
“But oh!” thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, “if I don’t make haste I
shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I’ve seen what
the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look at the garden first!”
She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs—or, at least,
it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention of hers for getting down
stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the
tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without
even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the
hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if
she hadn’t caught hold of the door-post. She was getting a little giddy
with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself
walking again in the natural way.
CHAPTER II.
The Garden of Live Flowers
“I should see the garden far better,” said Alice to herself, “if I
could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads
straight to it—at least, no, it doesn’t do that—” (after going a few
yards along the path, and turning several sharp corners), “but I
suppose it will at last. But how curiously it twists! It’s more like a
corkscrew than a path! Well, _this_ turn goes to the hill, I
suppose—no, it doesn’t! This goes straight back to the house! Well
then, I’ll try it the other way.”
And so she did: wandering up and down, and trying turn after turn, but
always coming back to the house, do what she would. Indeed, once, when
she turned a corner rather more quickly than usual, she ran against it
before she could stop herself.
“It’s no use talking about it,” Alice said, looking up at the house and
pretending it was arguing with her. “I’m _not_ going in again yet. I
know I should have to get through the Looking-glass again—back into the
old room—and there’d be an end of all my adventures!”
So, resolutely turning her back upon the house, she set out once more
down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill.
For a few minutes all went on well, and she was just saying, “I really
_shall_ do it this time—” when the path gave a sudden twist and shook
itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment she found
herself actually walking in at the door.
“Oh, it’s too bad!” she cried. “I never saw such a house for getting in
the way! Never!”
However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was nothing to be
done but start again. This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with
a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.
“O Tiger-lily,” said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving
gracefully about in the wind, “I _wish_ you could talk!”
“We _can_ talk,” said the Tiger-lily: “when there’s anybody worth
talking to.”
Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite
seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went
on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice—almost in a whisper.
“And can _all_ the flowers talk?”
“As well as _you_ can,” said the Tiger-lily. “And a great deal louder.”
“It isn’t manners for us to begin, you know,” said the Rose, “and I
really was wondering when you’d speak! Said I to myself, ‘Her face has
got _some_ sense in it, though it’s not a clever one!’ Still, you’re
the right colour, and that goes a long way.”
“I don’t care about the colour,” the Tiger-lily remarked. “If only her
petals curled up a little more, she’d be all right.”
Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking questions.
“Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody
to take care of you?”
“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose: “what else is it good
for?”
“But what could it do, if any danger came?” Alice asked.
“It says ‘Bough-wough!’” cried a Daisy: “that’s why its branches are
called boughs!”
“Didn’t you know _that_?” cried another Daisy, and here they all began
shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little shrill
voices. “Silence, every one of you!” cried the Tiger-lily, waving
itself passionately from side to side, and trembling with excitement.
“They know I can’t get at them!” it panted, bending its quivering head
towards Alice, “or they wouldn’t dare to do it!”
“Never mind!” Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the
daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered, “If you don’t
hold your tongues, I’ll pick you!”
There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies turned
white.
“That’s right!” said the Tiger-lily. “The daisies are worst of all.
When one speaks, they all begin together, and it’s enough to make one
wither to hear the way they go on!”
“How is it you can all talk so nicely?” Alice said, hoping to get it
into a better temper by a compliment. “I’ve been in many gardens
before, but none of the flowers could talk.”
“Put your hand down, and feel the ground,” said the Tiger-lily. “Then
you’ll know why.”
Alice did so. “It’s very hard,” she said, “but I don’t see what that
has to do with it.”
“In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “they make the beds too soft—so
that the flowers are always asleep.”
This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know
it. “I never thought of that before!” she said.
“It’s _my_ opinion that you never think _at all_,” the Rose said in a
rather severe tone.
“I never saw anybody that looked stupider,” a Violet said, so suddenly,
that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn’t spoken before.
“Hold _your_ tongue!” cried the Tiger-lily. “As if _you_ ever saw
anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away there,
till you know no more what’s going on in the world, than if you were a
bud!”
“Are there any more people in the garden besides me?” Alice said, not
choosing to notice the Rose’s last remark.
“There’s one other flower in the garden that can move about like you,”
said the Rose. “I wonder how you do it—” (“You’re always wondering,”
said the Tiger-lily), “but she’s more bushy than you are.”
“Is she like me?” Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her
mind, “There’s another little girl in the garden, somewhere!”
“Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,” the Rose said, “but
she’s redder—and her petals are shorter, I think.”
“Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia,” the Tiger-lily
interrupted: “not tumbled about anyhow, like yours.”
“But that’s not _your_ fault,” the Rose added kindly: “you’re beginning
to fade, you know—and then one can’t help one’s petals getting a little
untidy.”
Alice didn’t like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she
asked “Does she ever come out here?”
“I daresay you’ll see her soon,” said the Rose. “She’s one of the
thorny kind.”
“Where does she wear the thorns?” Alice asked with some curiosity.
“Why all round her head, of course,” the Rose replied. “I was wondering
_you_ hadn’t got some too. I thought it was the regular rule.”
“She’s coming!” cried the Larkspur. “I hear her footstep, thump, thump,
thump, along the gravel-walk!”
Alice looked round eagerly, and found that it was the Red Queen. “She’s
grown a good deal!” was her first remark. She had indeed: when Alice
first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches high—and
here she was, half a head taller than Alice herself!
“It’s the fresh air that does it,” said the Rose: “wonderfully fine air
it is, out here.”
“I think I’ll go and meet her,” said Alice, for, though the flowers
were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have
a talk with a real Queen.
“You can’t possibly do that,” said the Rose: “_I_ should advise you to
walk the other way.”
This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at
once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a
moment, and found herself walking in at the front-door again.
A little provoked, she drew back, and after looking everywhere for the
queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she
would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction.
It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before she
found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the
hill she had been so long aiming at.
“Where do you come from?” said the Red Queen. “And where are you going?
Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all the time.”
Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she
could, that she had lost her way.
“I don’t know what you mean by _your_ way,” said the Queen: “all the
ways about here belong to _me_—but why did you come out here at all?”
she added in a kinder tone. “Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say,
it saves time.”
Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the
Queen to disbelieve it. “I’ll try it when I go home,” she thought to
herself, “the next time I’m a little late for dinner.”
“It’s time for you to answer now,” the Queen said, looking at her
watch: “open your mouth a _little_ wider when you speak, and always say
‘your Majesty.’”
“I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty—”
“That’s right,” said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice
didn’t like at all, “though, when you say ‘garden,’—_I’ve_ seen
gardens, compared with which this would be a wilderness.”
Alice didn’t dare to argue the point, but went on: “—and I thought I’d
try and find my way to the top of that hill—”
“When you say ‘hill,’” the Queen interrupted, “_I_ could show you
hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at
last: “a hill _can’t_ be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense—”
The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,”
she said, “but _I’ve_ heard nonsense, compared with which that would be
as sensible as a dictionary!”
Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen’s tone that she
was a _little_ offended: and they walked on in silence till they got to
the top of the little hill.
For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all
directions over the country—and a most curious country it was. There
were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from
side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a
number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook.
“I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard!” Alice said at
last. “There ought to be some men moving about somewhere—and so there
are!” She added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick
with excitement as she went on. “It’s a great huge game of chess that’s
being played—all over the world—if this _is_ the world at all, you
know. Oh, what fun it is! How I _wish_ I was one of them! I wouldn’t
mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should
_like_ to be a Queen, best.”
She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her
companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, “That’s easily managed. You
can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like, as Lily’s too young to
play; and you’re in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to
the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen—” Just at this moment, somehow or
other, they began to run.
Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how
it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running
hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do
to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying “Faster! Faster!”
but Alice felt she _could not_ go faster, though she had not breath
left to say so.
The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other
things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they
went, they never seemed to pass anything. “I wonder if all the things
move along with us?” thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed
to guess her thoughts, for she cried, “Faster! Don’t try to talk!”
Not that Alice had any idea of doing _that_. She felt as if she would
never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and
still the Queen cried “Faster! Faster!” and dragged her along. “Are we
nearly there?” Alice managed to pant out at last.
“Nearly there!” the Queen repeated. “Why, we passed it ten minutes ago!
Faster!” And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling
in Alice’s ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.
“Now! Now!” cried the Queen. “Faster! Faster!” And they went so fast
that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the
ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite
exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground,
breathless and giddy.
The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, “You may rest
a little now.”
Alice looked round her in great surprise. “Why, I do believe we’ve been
under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!”
“Of course it is,” said the Queen, “what would you have it?”
“Well, in _our_ country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d
generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time,
as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, _here_, you see, it
takes all the running _you_ can do, to keep in the same place. If you
want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as
that!”
“I’d rather not try, please!” said Alice. “I’m quite content to stay
here—only I _am_ so hot and thirsty!”
“I know what _you’d_ like!” the Queen said good-naturedly, taking a
little box out of her pocket. “Have a biscuit?”
Alice thought it would not be civil to say “No,” though it wasn’t at
all what she wanted. So she took it, and ate it as well as she could:
and it was _very_ dry; and she thought she had never been so nearly
choked in all her life.
“While you’re refreshing yourself,” said the Queen, “I’ll just take the
measurements.” And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, marked in
inches, and began measuring the ground, and sticking little pegs in
here and there.
“At the end of two yards,” she said, putting in a peg to mark the
distance, “I shall give you your directions—have another biscuit?”
“No, thank you,” said Alice: “one’s _quite_ enough!”
“Thirst quenched, I hope?” said the Queen.
Alice did not know what to say to this, but luckily the Queen did not
wait for an answer, but went on. “At the end of _three_ yards I shall
repeat them—for fear of your forgetting them. At the end of _four_, I
shall say good-bye. And at the end of _five_, I shall go!”
She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on with
great interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly
walking down the row.
At the two-yard peg she faced round, and said, “A pawn goes two squares
in its first move, you know. So you’ll go _very_ quickly through the
Third Square—by railway, I should think—and you’ll find yourself in the
Fourth Square in no time. Well, _that_ square belongs to Tweedledum and
Tweedledee—the Fifth is mostly water—the Sixth belongs to Humpty
Dumpty—But you make no remark?”
“I—I didn’t know I had to make one—just then,” Alice faltered out.
“You _should_ have said, ‘It’s extremely kind of you to tell me all
this’—however, we’ll suppose it said—the Seventh Square is all
forest—however, one of the Knights will show you the way—and in the
Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it’s all feasting and
fun!” Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again.
At the next peg the Queen turned again, and this time she said, “Speak
in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing—turn out your
toes as you walk—and remember who you are!” She did not wait for Alice
to curtsey this time, but walked on quickly to the next peg, where she
turned for a moment to say “good-bye,” and then hurried on to the last.
How it happened, Alice never knew, but exactly as she came to the last
peg, she was gone. Whether she vanished into the air, or whether she
ran quickly into the wood (“and she _can_ run very fast!” thought
Alice), there was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and Alice began
to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for her
to move.
CHAPTER III.
Looking-Glass Insects
Of course the first thing to do was to make a grand survey of the
country she was going to travel through. “It’s something very like
learning geography,” thought Alice, as she stood on tiptoe in hopes of
being able to see a little further. “Principal rivers—there _are_ none.
Principal mountains—I’m on the only one, but I don’t think it’s got any
name. Principal towns—why, what _are_ those creatures, making honey
down there? They can’t be bees—nobody ever saw bees a mile off, you
know—” and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that
was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them,
“just as if it was a regular bee,” thought Alice.
However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an
elephant—as Alice soon found out, though the idea quite took her breath
away at first. “And what enormous flowers they must be!” was her next
idea. “Something like cottages with the roofs taken off, and stalks put
to them—and what quantities of honey they must make! I think I’ll go
down and—no, I won’t _just_ yet,” she went on, checking herself just as
she was beginning to run down the hill, and trying to find some excuse
for turning shy so suddenly. “It’ll never do to go down among them
without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it’ll be
when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—‘Oh, I like it well
enough—’” (here came the favourite little toss of the head), “‘only it
was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did tease so!’”
“I think I’ll go down the other way,” she said after a pause: “and
perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to
get into the Third Square!”
So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of
the six little brooks.
*      *      *      *      *      *      *
    *      *      *      *      *      *
*      *      *      *      *      *      *
“Tickets, please!” said the Guard, putting his head in at the window.
In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about the
same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the carriage.
“Now then! Show your ticket, child!” the Guard went on, looking angrily
at Alice. And a great many voices all said together (“like the chorus
of a song,” thought Alice), “Don’t keep him waiting, child! Why, his
time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!”
“I’m afraid I haven’t got one,” Alice said in a frightened tone: “there
wasn’t a ticket-office where I came from.” And again the chorus of
voices went on. “There wasn’t room for one where she came from. The
land there is worth a thousand pounds an inch!”
“Don’t make excuses,” said the Guard: “you should have bought one from
the engine-driver.” And once more the chorus of voices went on with
“The man that drives the engine. Why, the smoke alone is worth a
thousand pounds a puff!”
Alice thought to herself, “Then there’s no use in speaking.” The voices
didn’t join in this time, as she hadn’t spoken, but to her great
surprise, they all _thought_ in chorus (I hope you understand what
_thinking in chorus_ means—for I must confess that _I_ don’t), “Better
say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!”
“I shall dream about a thousand pounds tonight, I know I shall!”
thought Alice.
All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope,
then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he
said, “You’re travelling the wrong way,” and shut up the window and
went away.
“So young a child,” said the gentleman sitting opposite to her (he was
dressed in white paper), “ought to know which way she’s going, even if
she doesn’t know her own name!”
A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his eyes
and said in a loud voice, “She ought to know her way to the
ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her alphabet!”
There was a Beetle sitting next to the Goat (it was a very queer
carriage-full of passengers altogether), and, as the rule seemed to be
that they should all speak in turn, _he_ went on with “She’ll have to
go back from here as luggage!”
Alice couldn’t see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse
voice spoke next. “Change engines—” it said, and was obliged to leave
off.
“It sounds like a horse,” Alice thought to herself. And an extremely
small voice, close to her ear, said, “You might make a joke on
that—something about ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse,’ you know.”
Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, “She must be labelled
‘Lass, with care,’ you know—”
And after that other voices went on (“What a number of people there are
in the carriage!” thought Alice), saying, “She must go by post, as
she’s got a head on her—” “She must be sent as a message by the
telegraph—” “She must draw the train herself the rest of the way—” and
so on.
But the gentleman dressed in white paper leaned forwards and whispered
in her ear, “Never mind what they all say, my dear, but take a
return-ticket every time the train stops.”
“Indeed I shan’t!” Alice said rather impatiently. “I don’t belong to
this railway journey at all—I was in a wood just now—and I wish I could
get back there.”
“You might make a joke on _that_,” said the little voice close to her
ear: “something about ‘you _would_ if you could,’ you know.”
“Don’t tease so,” said Alice, looking about in vain to see where the
voice came from; “if you’re so anxious to have a joke made, why don’t
you make one yourself?”
The little voice sighed deeply: it was _very_ unhappy, evidently, and
Alice would have said something pitying to comfort it, “If it would
only sigh like other people!” she thought. But this was such a
wonderfully small sigh, that she wouldn’t have heard it at all, if it
hadn’t come _quite_ close to her ear. The consequence of this was that
it tickled her ear very much, and quite took off her thoughts from the
unhappiness of the poor little creature.
“I know you are a friend,” the little voice went on; “a dear friend,
and an old friend. And you won’t hurt me, though I _am_ an insect.”
“What kind of insect?” Alice inquired a little anxiously. What she
really wanted to know was, whether it could sting or not, but she
thought this wouldn’t be quite a civil question to ask.
“What, then you don’t—” the little voice began, when it was drowned by
a shr


Summarize in plain English: THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER By Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
PREFACE
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two
were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates
of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an
individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom
I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.
The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and
slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or
forty years ago.
Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and
girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account,
for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what
they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked,
and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
THE AUTHOR.
HARTFORD, 1876.
CHAPTER I
“Tom!”
No answer.
“TOM!”
No answer.
“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the
room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or
never looked _through_ them for so small a thing as a boy; they were
her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for “style,” not
service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.
She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but
still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
“Well, I lay if I get hold of you I’ll—”
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching
under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the
punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
“I never did see the beat of that boy!”
She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the
tomato vines and “jimpson” weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So
she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:
“Y-o-u-u TOM!”
There 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.
“There! I might ’a’ thought of that closet. What you been doing in
there?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What _is_ that
truck?”
“I don’t know, aunt.”
“Well, I know. It’s jam—that’s what it is. Forty times I’ve said if you
didn’t let that jam alone I’d skin you. Hand me that switch.”
The switch hovered in the air—the peril was desperate—
“My! Look behind you, aunt!”
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger.
The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and
disappeared over it.
His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle
laugh.
“Hang the boy, can’t I never learn anything? Ain’t he played me tricks
enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old
fools is the biggest fools there is. Can’t learn an old dog new tricks,
as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days,
and how is a body to know what’s coming? He ’pears to know just how long
he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make
out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it’s all down again and
I can’t hit him a lick. I ain’t doing my duty by that boy, and that’s
the Lord’s truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as
the Good Book says. I’m a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I
know. He’s full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he’s my own dead
sister’s boy, poor thing, and I ain’t got the heart to lash him,
somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and
every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is
born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says,
and I reckon it’s so. He’ll play hookey this evening,[*] and I’ll just
be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. It’s mighty hard
to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having 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.”
[*] Southwestern for “afternoon”
Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home
barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day’s wood
and split the kindlings before supper—at least he was there in time
to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work.
Tom’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, trouble-some ways.
While 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. Like
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. Said she:
“Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn’t it?”
“Yes’m.”
“Powerful warm, warn’t it?”
“Yes’m.”
“Didn’t you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?”
A bit of a scare shot through Tom—a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He
searched Aunt Polly’s face, but it told him nothing. So he said:
“No’m—well, not very much.”
The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom’s shirt, and said:
“But you ain’t too warm now, though.” And 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. But in spite of her, Tom knew
where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:
“Some of us pumped on our heads—mine’s damp yet. See?”
Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of
circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new
inspiration:
“Tom, you didn’t have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to
pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!”
The trouble vanished out of Tom’s face. He opened his jacket. His shirt
collar was securely sewed.
“Bother! Well, go ’long with you. I’d made sure you’d played hookey
and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you’re a kind of a
singed cat, as the saying is—better’n you look. _This_ time.”
She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom
had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.
But Sidney said:
“Well, now, if I didn’t think you sewed his collar with white thread,
but it’s black.”
“Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!”
But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:
“Siddy, I’ll lick you for that.”
In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into
the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them—one needle
carried white thread and the other black. He said:
“She’d never noticed if it hadn’t been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes
she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to
gee-miny she’d stick to one or t’other—I can’t keep the run of ’em. But
I bet you I’ll lam Sid for that. I’ll learn him!”
He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well
though—and loathed him.
Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not
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. This new
interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired
from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed. It
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—the reader probably remembers how to
do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence 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. He felt much as an astronomer
feels who has discovered a new planet—no doubt, as far as strong, deep,
unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the
astronomer.
The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom
checked his whistle. A stranger was before him—a boy a shade larger
than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive
curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy
was well dressed, too—well dressed on a week-day. This was simply
astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth
roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes
on—and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of
ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom’s vitals. The
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. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved—but only
sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the
time. Finally Tom said:
“I can lick you!”
“I’d like to see you try it.”
“Well, I can do it.”
“No you can’t, either.”
“Yes I can.”
“No you can’t.”
“I can.”
“You can’t.”
“Can!”
“Can’t!”
An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:
“What’s your name?”
“’Tisn’t any of your business, maybe.”
“Well I ’low I’ll _make_ it my business.”
“Well why don’t you?”
“If you say much, I will.”
“Much—much—_much_. There now.”
“Oh, you think you’re mighty smart, _don’t_ you? I could lick you with
one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to.”
“Well why don’t you _do_ it? You _say_ you can do it.”
“Well I _will_, if you fool with me.”
“Oh yes—I’ve seen whole families in the same fix.”
“Smarty! You think you’re _some_, now, _don’t_ you? Oh, what a hat!”
“You can lump that hat if you don’t like it. I dare you to knock it
off—and anybody that’ll take a dare will suck eggs.”
“You’re a liar!”
“You’re another.”
“You’re a fighting liar and dasn’t take it up.”
“Aw—take a walk!”
“Say—if you give me much more of your sass I’ll take and bounce a rock
off’n your head.”
“Oh, of _course_ you will.”
“Well I _will_.”
“Well why don’t you _do_ it then? What do you keep _saying_ you will
for? Why don’t you _do_ it? It’s because you’re afraid.”
“I _ain’t_ afraid.”
“You are.”
“I ain’t.”
“You are.”
Another pause, and more eying and sidling around each other. Presently
they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:
“Get away from here!”
“Go away yourself!”
“I won’t.”
“I won’t either.”
So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both
shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate. But
neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and
flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said:
“You’re a coward and a pup. I’ll tell my big brother on you, and he can
thrash you with his little finger, and I’ll make him do it, too.”
“What do I care for your big brother? I’ve got a brother that’s bigger
than he is—and what’s more, he can throw him over that fence, too.”
 [Both brothers were imaginary.]
“That’s a lie.”
“_Your_ saying so don’t make it so.”
Tom 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. Anybody that’ll take a dare will steal sheep.”
The new boy stepped over promptly, and said:
“Now you said you’d do it, now let’s see you do it.”
“Don’t you crowd me now; you better look out.”
“Well, you _said_ you’d do it—why don’t you do it?”
“By jingo! for two cents I _will_ do it.”
The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out
with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In 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. Presently the confusion took form, and through the
fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him
with his fists. “Holler ’nuff!” said he.
The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying—mainly from rage.
“Holler ’nuff!”—and the pounding went on.
At last the stranger got out a smothered “’Nuff!” and Tom let him up and
said:
“Now that’ll learn you. Better look out who you’re fooling with next
time.”
The 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.”
 To 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. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he
lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the
enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the
window and declined. At last the enemy’s mother appeared, and called Tom
a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away; but
he said he “’lowed” to “lay” for that boy.
He 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 labor became adamantine in its
firmness.
CHAPTER II
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.
CHAPTER III
Tom presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an
open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom,
breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer
air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing
murmur of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her
knitting—for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her
lap. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had
thought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at
seeing him place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He
said: “Mayn’t I go and play now, aunt?”
“What, a’ready? How much have you done?”
“It’s all done, aunt.”
“Tom, don’t lie to me—I can’t bear it.”
“I ain’t, aunt; it _is_ all done.”
Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for
herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of
Tom’s statement true. When she found the entire fence white-washed, and
not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a
streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable. She
said:
“Well, I never! There’s no getting round it, you can work when you’re a
mind to, Tom.” And then she diluted the compliment by adding, “But it’s
powerful seldom you’re a mind to, I’m bound to say. Well, go ’long and
play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I’ll tan you.”
She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took
him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him,
along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat
took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort.
And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he “hooked” a
doughnut.
Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway
that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and
the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a
hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties
and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect,
and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general
thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at
peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his
black thread and getting him into trouble.
Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by the
back of his aunt’s cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the reach
of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of the
village, where two “military” companies of boys had met for conflict,
according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of these
armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These two
great commanders did not condescend to fight in person—that being better
suited to the still smaller fry—but sat together on an eminence
and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through
aides-de-camp. Tom’s army won a great victory, after a long and
hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged,
the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the
necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and
marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.
As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new
girl in the garden—a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow
hair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered
pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A
certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a
memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction;
he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor
little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had
confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest
boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time
she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is
done.
He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had
discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and
began to “show off” in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win
her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time;
but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic
performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wending
her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it,
grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer. She halted a
moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great
sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up,
right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she
disappeared.
The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and
then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as
if he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction.
Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his
nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side,
in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally his
bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped
away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for a
minute—only while he could button the flower inside his jacket, next
his heart—or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in
anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.
He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, “showing
off,” as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom
comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some
window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode
home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.
All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered “what
had got into the child.” He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and
did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his
aunt’s very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said:
“Aunt, you don’t whack Sid when he takes it.”
“Well, Sid don’t torment a body the way you do. You’d be always into
that sugar if I warn’t watching you.”
Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity,
reached for the sugar-bowl—a sort of glorying over Tom which was
wellnigh unbearable. But Sid’s fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and
broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even controlled
his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a
word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she
asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be
nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model “catch it.” He was
so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the old
lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath
from over her spectacles. He said to himself, “Now it’s coming!” And the
next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted
to strike again when Tom cried out:
“Hold on, now, what ’er you belting _me_ for?—Sid broke it!”
Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when
she got her tongue again, she only said:
“Umf! Well, you didn’t get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some
other audacious mischief when I wasn’t around, like enough.”
Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something
kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a
confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that.
So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart.
Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart
his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the
consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take notice
of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, now and then,
through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured
himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching
one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and
die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured
himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and
his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how
her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back
her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would
lie there cold and white and make no sign—a poor little sufferer, whose
griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos of
these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like to choke;
and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked,
and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to
him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any
worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too
sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced
in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit
of one week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darkness
out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other.
He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate
places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the river
invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplated
the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he could
only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing the
uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower.
He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismal
felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would she
cry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck and
comfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world?
This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he
worked it over and over again in his mind and set it up in new and
varied lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he rose up sighing
and departed in the darkness.
About half-past nine or ten o’clock he came along the deserted street to
where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell upon
his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain
of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed the
fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood under
that window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid him
down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back, with his
hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor wilted flower.
And thus he would die—out in the cold world, with no shelter over his
homeless head, no friendly hand to wipe the death-damps from his brow,
no loving face to bend pityingly over him when the great agony came. And
thus _she_ would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and
oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would
she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted,
so untimely cut down?
The window went up, a maid-servant’s discordant voice profaned the holy
calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr’s remains!
The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz
as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound
as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the
fence and shot away in the gloom.
Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his
drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he
had any dim idea of making any “references to allusions,” he thought
better of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom’s eye.
Tom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made mental
note of the omission.
CHAPTER IV
The sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful
village like a benediction. Breakfast over, Aunt Polly had family
worship: it began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid
courses of Scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of
originality; and from the summit of this she delivered a grim chapter of
the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.
Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to “get
his verses.” Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his
energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the
Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter.
At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson,
but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human
thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary took
his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through the
fog:
“Blessed are the—a—a—”
“Poor”—
“Yes—poor; blessed are the poor—a—a—”
“In spirit—”
“In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they—they—”
“_Theirs_—”
“For _theirs_. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they—they—”
“Sh—”
“For they—a—”
“S, H, A—”
“For they S, H—Oh, I don’t know what it is!”
“_Shall_!”
“Oh, _shall_! for they shall—for they shall—a—a—shall
mourn—a—a—blessed are they that shall—they that—a—they that
shall mourn, for they shall—a—shall _what_? Why don’t you tell me,
Mary?—what do you want to be so mean for?”
“Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I’m not teasing you. I wouldn’t
do that. You must go and learn it again. Don’t you be discouraged, Tom,
you’ll manage it—and if you do, I’ll give you something ever so nice.
There, now, that’s a good boy.”
“All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is.”
“Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it’s nice, it is nice.”
“You bet you that’s so, Mary. All right, I’ll tackle it again.”
And he did “tackle it again”—and under the double pressure of curiosity
and prospective gain he did it with such spirit that he accomplished a
shining success. Mary gave him a brand-new “Barlow” knife worth twelve
and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that swept his system
shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything,
but it was a “sure-enough” Barlow, and there was inconceivable grandeur
in that—though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a
weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its injury is an imposing
mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom contrived to scarify the
cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin on the bureau, when he was
called off to dress for Sunday-school.
Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap, and he went
outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there; then he
dipped the soap in the water and laid it down; turned up his sleeves;
poured out the water on the ground, gently, and then entered the kitchen
and began to wipe his face diligently on the towel behind the door. But
Mary removed the towel and said:
“Now ain’t you ashamed, Tom. You mustn’t be so bad. Water won’t hurt
you.”
Tom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was refilled, and this time he
stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big breath
and began. When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes shut
and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony of
suds and water was dripping from his face. But when he emerged from
the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped
short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line
there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in
front and backward around his neck. Mary took him in hand, and when she
was done with him he was a man and a brother, without distinction of
color, and his saturated hair was neatly brushed, and its short curls
wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general effect. [He privately
smoothed out the curls, with labor and difficulty, and plastered his
hair close down to his head; for he held curls to be effeminate, and his
own filled his life with bitterness.] Then Mary got out a suit of his
clothing that had been used only on Sundays during two years—they were
simply called his “other clothes”—and so by that we know the size of his
wardrobe. The girl “put him to rights” after he had dressed himself;
she buttoned his neat roundabout up to his chin, turned his vast shirt
collar down over his shoulders, brushed him off and crowned him with
his speckled straw hat. He now looked exceedingly improved and
uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable as he looked; for there
was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanliness that galled him. He
hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted; she
coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was the custom, and brought
them out. He lost his temper and said he was always being made to do
everything he didn’t want to do. But Mary said, persuasively:
“Please, Tom—that’s a good boy.”
So he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was soon ready, and the three
children set out for Sunday-school—a place that Tom hated with his whole
heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it.
Sabbath-school hours were from nine to half-past ten; and then church
service. Two of the children always remained for the sermon voluntarily,
and the other always remained too—for stronger reasons. The church’s
high-backed, uncushioned pews would seat about three hundred persons;
the edifice was but a small, plain affair, with a sort of pine board
tree-box on top of it for a steeple. At the door Tom dropped back a step
and accosted a Sunday-dressed comrade:
“Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?”
“Yes.”
“What’ll you take for her?”
“What’ll you give?”
“Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook.”
“Less see ’em.”
Tom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and the property changed hands.
Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and some
small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones. He waylaid other
boys as they came, and went on buying tickets of various colors ten
or fifteen minutes longer. He entered the church, now, with a swarm
of clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started
a quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave,
elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a
boy’s hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy
turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear
him say “Ouch!” and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom’s whole
class were of a pattern—restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they came
to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses perfectly, but
had to be prompted all along. However, they worried through, and each
got his reward—in small blue tickets, each with a passage of Scripture
on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of the recitation. Ten
blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red
tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent
gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty cents in those easy
times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would have the industry and
application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Doré Bible? And
yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way—it was the patient work of
two years—and a boy of German parentage had won four or five. He once
recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his
mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot
from that day forth—a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great
occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it)
had always made this boy come out and “spread himself.” Only the older
pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work
long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes
was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so
great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar’s
heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple
of weeks. It is possible that Tom’s mental stomach had never really
hungered for one of those prizes, but unquestionably his entire being
had for many a day longed for the glory and the eclat that came with it.
In due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with
a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its
leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent
makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as
necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer
who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert—though
why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of music
is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a slim
creature of thirty-five, with a sandy goatee and short sandy hair; he
wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper edge almost reached his ears
and whose sharp points curved forward abreast the corners of his mouth—a
fence that compelled a straight lookout ahead, and a turning of the
whole body when a side view was required; his chin was propped on a
spreading cravat which was as broad and as long as a bank-note, and had
fringed ends; his boot toes were turned sharply up, in the fashion
of the day, like sleigh-runners—an effect patiently and laboriously
produced by the young men by sitting with their toes pressed against a
wall for hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest of mien, and very
sincere and honest at heart; and he held sacred things and places
in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly matters, that
unconsciously to himself his Sunday-school voice had acquired a peculiar
intonation which was wholly absent on week-days. He began after this
fashion:
“Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as
you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There—that
is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one
little girl who is looking out of the window—I am afraid she thinks I
am out there somewhere—perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech
to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] I want to tell you how good it
makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces assembled in a
place like this, learning to do right and be good.” And so forth and so
on. It is not necessary to set down the rest of the oration. It was of a
pattern which does not vary, and so it is familiar to us all.
The latter third of the speech was marred by the resumption of fights
and other recreations among certain of the bad boys, and by fidgetings
and whisperings that extended far and wide, washing even to the bases of
isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid and Mary. But now every sound
ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of Mr. Walters’ voice, and the
conclusion of the speech was received with a burst of silent gratitude.
A good part of the whispering had been occasioned by an event which was
more or less rare—the entrance of visitors: lawyer Thatcher, accompanied
by a very feeble and aged man; a fine, portly, middle-aged gentleman
with iron-gray hair; and a dignified lady who was doubtless the latter’s
wife. The lady was leading a child. Tom