“It’s ever so nice—I wish I
could draw.”
“It’s easy,” whispered Tom, “I’ll
learn you.”
“Oh, will you? When?”
“At noon. Do you go home to dinner?”
“I’ll stay if you will.”
“Good—that’s a whack.
What’s your name?”
“Becky Thatcher. What’s yours?
Oh, I know. It’s Thomas Sawyer.”
“That’s the name they lick me by.
I’m Tom when I’m good. You call me
Tom, will you?”
“Yes.”
Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding
the words from the girl. But she was not backward
this time. She begged to see. Tom said:
“Oh, it ain’t anything.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it ain’t. You don’t want
to see.”
“Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me.”
“You’ll tell.”
“No I won’t—deed and deed and
double deed won’t.”
“You won’t tell anybody at all? Ever,
as long as you live?”
“No, I won’t ever tell ANYbody. Now
let me.”
“Oh, you don’t want to see!”
“Now that you treat me so, I will see.”
And she put her small hand upon his and a little scuffle
ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest but letting
his hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed:
“I love you.”
“Oh, you bad thing!” And she hit his hand
a smart rap, but reddened and looked pleased, nevertheless.
Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful
grip closing on his ear, and a steady lifting impulse.
In that vise he was borne across the house and deposited
in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles
from the whole school. Then the master stood over
him during a few awful moments, and finally moved
away to his throne without saying a word. But
although Tom’s ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.
As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort
to study, but the turmoil within him was too great.
In turn he took his place in the reading class and
made a botch of it; then in the geography class and
turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers,
and rivers into continents, till chaos was come again;
then in the spelling class, and got “turned
down,” by a succession of mere baby words, till
he brought up at the foot and yielded up the pewter
medal which he had worn with ostentation for months.
The harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his
book, the more his ideas wandered. So at last,
with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It seemed
to him that the noon recess would never come.
The air was utterly dead. There was not a breath
stirring. It was the sleepiest of sleepy days.
The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying
scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in
the murmur of bees. Away off in the flaming sunshine,
Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a
shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of
