Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

MA

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ARK TWAIN is the pen-name of SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS, who was born in Florida, Missouri, in 1835. He learned the trade of a printer, served for some time as pilot on the Mississippi (1858), and at last entered on a journalistic career in Virginia, San Francisco, and Buffalo. His visit to Egypt and Palestine (1867) resulted in The Innocents Abroad (1869), which at once established his fame as a humorist. In 1871 he settled at Hartford, Conn., and, in 1884, founded a publishing house in New York. The failure of this firm (1895) involved the loss of his for

86

40

44

[ocr errors]

48

tune; but he quickly re-established it by a lecturing tour round the world.

Mark Twain's fame is based on his peculiar gift of a dry incisive humour, which, however, sometimes becomes extravagant and grotesque. The best-known of his numerous prose-stories and sketches seem to be The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), which is usually considered his masterpiece, A Tramp Abroad (1880), The Stolen White Elephant (1882), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

A TRICK OF TOM SAWYER'S.
[From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch. II (1876)]

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,

52

56

and the fragrance of the blossoms 10 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, 15 dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Tom appeared on the side-walk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and the gladness went out of 20 nature, and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of broad fence nine feet high! It seemed to him that life was hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing 25 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 30 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 35 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 40 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 45 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 50 you'll whitewash some.'

Jim shook his head, and said: 'Can't, Ma'rs Tom. Ole missis she tole me I got to go an' git dis water an' not stop foolin' 'roun wid any65 body. She say she spec' Ma'rs Tom gwyne to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

'She! she never licks anybody whacks 'em over the head with her thimble, and who cares for that, I'd 70 like to know? She talks awful, but talk don't hurt anyways, it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you a marble. I'll give you a white alley!' Jim began to waver. 'White alley, Jim; and it's a bully tow.'

'My; dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you. But, Ma'rs Tom, I's powerful 'fraid ole missis.'

this

75

80

But Jim was only human attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley. In another minute he was flying down the street with his pail and 85 a tingling rear, Tom was white-washing with vigour, and aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.

[ocr errors]

But Tom's energy did not last. 90 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 95 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 100 and trash; enough to buy an exchange of work maybe, but not enough to buy so much as half-an-hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up 105 the idea of trying to buy the boys.

[ocr errors]

At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him. Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspi110 ration. 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 115 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 a intervals, followed by a deep120 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 125 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 130 captain, and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane deck giving the orders and executing them.

'Stop her, sir! Ling-a-ling-ling.' 136 The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk. 'Ship up to back! Ling-aling-ling!' His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides. 'Set 140 her back on the stabboard! Linga-ling-ling!' Chow! ch-chow-wowchow! his right hand meantime describing stately circles, for it was representing a forty-foot wheel. 'Let 145 her go back on the labbord! Ling-aling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!' The left hand began to describe circles. 'Stop the stabboard! Ling-a-lingling! Stop the labboard! Come 150 ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ling-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 Herrig-Förster, British Authors.

155

a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage now let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ling-a-ling-ling!'

Sht! s'sht! sht!' (Trying the gauge- 160 cocks.)

Tom went on whitewashing paid no attention to the steamer. Ben stared a moment, and then said: 'Hi-yi! You're up a stump, ain't you!' 165

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. 170 Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said: 'Hello, old chap; you got to work, hey?' 'Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing.'

'Say, I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd druther work wouldn't you? 'Course you would!'

175

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, 180 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 185 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 190 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 195 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 get- 200 ting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: 'Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.'

48

205

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

right but

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 210 here on the street, you know if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't. Yes, she's e's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon 215 there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done.'

220

'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, but she wouldn't 225 let Sid. Now, don't you see how I am fixed? If you was to tackle this fence, and anything was to happen to it—'

'Oh, shucks; I'll be just as care230 ful. Now lemme try. Say I'll

235

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 240 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 245 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 250 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 256 morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, besides the things I have mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jew's harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool- 260 car cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tad-poles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one 265 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 270 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. 276

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 280 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 285 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 290 why constructing artificial flowers, or performing on a treadmill, is work, whilst rolling nine-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who 296 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 300 the service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign.

« AnteriorContinuar »