"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Opening lines of book, Aunt Polly calls
Tom, Chapter 1. |
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.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly on Tom, Chapter 1. |
He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model
boy very well though--and loathed him.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom thinking, Chapter 1. |
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.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 2. |
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
obtain.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom's discovery, Chapter 2. |
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and. Play
consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 2. |
Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom,
the harder it is to get rid of it.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 5. |
The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously
through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and
by began to nod and yet it was an argument that dealt
in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined
elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
At Sunday church sermon, Chapter 5. |
Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers
of the town because he was idle, and lawless, and vulgar, and
bad - and because all their children admired him so, and delighted
in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 6. |
You only just tell a boy you won't ever have anybody but him,
ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's all. Anybody can
do it.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Becky to Tom, Chapter 7. |
The elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained
shape long at a time.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 8. |
They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood
Forest than President of the United States forever.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom and Joe Harper, Chapter 8. |
Five years ago you drove me away from your father's kitchen
one night, when I come to ask for something to eat, and you
said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get even
with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed
for a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't
in me for nothing. And now I've got you, and you got to settle,
you know!
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Injun Joe to Dr. Robinson, Chapter 9. |
She was a subscriber to all the "Health" periodicals
and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance they were
inflated with was breath to her nostrils. All the rot they contained
about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up,
and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to
take, and what frame of mind to keep oneself in, and what sort
of clothing to wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed
that health journals of the current month customarily upset
everything they had recommended the month before. She was as
simple-hearted and honest as the day was long, and so she was
an easy victim. She gathered together her quack periodicals
and her quack medicines, and, thus armed with death, went about
on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with "hell
following after."
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Of Aunt Polly, Chapter 12. |
Oh, they just have a bully time - take ships, and burn them,
and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island
where there's ghosts and things to watch, it, and kill everybody
in the ships - make 'em walk a plank. they don't kill the women
- they're too noble. And the women's always beautiful, too.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom about pirates, Chapter 13. |
There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking
sweetmeats was only "hooking," while taking bacon
and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing
and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly
resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their
piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom and friends Huck and Joe, Chapter 13. |
Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned;
hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed;
accusing memories of unkindnesses to these poor lost lads were
rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged:
and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town,
and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety
was concerned. This was fine. It was worth being a pirate, after
all.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom, Huck and Joe feel like heroes, after
learning the town thinks they are drowned, chapter 14. |
As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures
of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the
lost lads, that every soul there, thinking he recognized these
pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently
blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently
seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Funeral service for Tom, Huck and Joe,
Chapter 17. |
What a hero Tom was become now! He did not go skipping and
prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger, as became a pirate
who felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was;
he tried not to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as
he passed along, but they were food and drink to him.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
On his return from pretending to be a
pirate on the island Tom is treated like a hero, Chapter 18. |
I could forgive the boy, now, if he'd committed a million
sins!
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly about Tom, Chapter 19. |
To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world
to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 22. |
Tom was a glittering hero once more. There were some that
believed he would be President yet, if he escaped hanging.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Tom is a hero after giving evidence against
murderer Injun Joe, Chapter 24. |
Huck Finn's wealth, and the fact that he was under the Widow
Douglas's protection, introduced him into society - no, dragged
him into it, hurled him into it - and his sufferings were almost
more than he could bear. whithersoever he turned, the bars and
shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him hand and
foot.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Chapter 35. |
When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly
where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he writes
of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Conclusion. |