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.
T O M
S A W
Y E R
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."