* * *
‘TOM!’
No answer. ‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘What happened with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!’
No answer.
Aunt Polly looked everywhere, she even bent down, poked under the bed with the broom, and found nothing but the cat.
‘Y-o-u-u TOM!’
There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to catch a small boy.
‘There! What have you been doing in the pantry?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS it?’
‘I don’t know, aunt.’
‘Well, I know. It’s jam – that’s what it is. I’ve told you forty times not to touch it. Where’s my switch?–’
‘Wow! Look behind you, aunt!’
The old woman turned round, and Tom managed to run away from her – he climbed up the high fence, and disappeared over it.
His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then laughed.
‘I can never learn anything! He’s played the same trick enough for me to remember it! You can’t learn an old dog new tricks I’m sure he won’t go to school this afternoon, and I’ll just have to make him work tomorrow, to punish him. It’s hard to make him work on Saturdays, when all the boys are having holiday. But he hates work more than he hates anything else, so I’ve GOT to find some job for him.’
Tom didn’t go to school, and he had a very good time.
While the boy was eating his dinner, and stealing sugar when he had a chance Aunt Polly asked him difficult questions about his classes – she wanted to make him tell her the truth.
Tom was clever enough in his answers.
She wouldn’t know that Tom was lying if it hadn’t been for Sid, his younger brother.
To make the long story short Aunt Polly discovered the truth: Tom hadn’t been to school and he had been swimming instead.
As soon as it became clear Tom went out at the door saying:
‘Siddy, I’ll beat you for that.’
Tom was not the model boy of the village. He knew the model boy – Sid – and hated him sometimes.
Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles because he found a new interesting activity – whistling. He had learned to whistle a couple of days ago and now he decided to practise it.
The summer evenings were long so he had a lot of time ahead.
Then he saw a stranger boy a little larger than himself. Meeting a newcomer of any age of either sex was an important in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well dressed – on a week-day. He even had shoes on – and it was only Friday. You could see that he was a city boy. The more Tom stared at the stranger, the higher he turned up his nose. He could feel that his own clothes were old and poor. Neither of the boys spoke. If one moved, the other moved – but only to the side; so they were moving in a circle; keeping face to face and eye to eye all the time.
Finally Tom started a usual dialogue. Each of the boys said he was going to beat the other one. And each said he had an elder brother who could also beat the other’s elder brother.
Finally they fought.
They were rolling in the dirt, tearing each other’s hair and clothes, covering themselves with dust and glory.
Tom won.
The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, and shouting what he would do to Tom the ‘next time he caught him.’
When Tom’s turned to go, the new boy took a stone, threw it, hit him Tom between the shoulders and then ran away as fast as he could. Tom chased him home, and waited at the gate for some time, inviting the enemy to come outside. At last the enemy’s mother appeared, and called Tom a bad, evil child.
Tom got home rather late that night, and when he climbed in through the window, he was caught by his aunt immediately. When she saw the state of his clothes she decided that Tom would not enjoy his Saturday.
* * *
Saturday morning came, and all the summer world was bright and fresh. There was a song in every heart and a smile on every face. But Tom was not very happy when he appeared in the street with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. When he looked at the fence, so long and high, he felt depressed.
Then he saw Jim, a slave boy, who was running out of the gate with a bucket. Tom himself had always hated bringing water from the town pump. But it seemed better than whitewashing. Tom said:
‘I say, Jim, I’ll bring the water if you whitewash a part of the fence.’
Jim shook his head and said:
‘I can’t, master Tom. Your aunt said you had to do it all. She’ll be angry if she learns that I helped you.’
When the boys noticed Aunt Polly coming out of the house Jim ran away with his bucket and Tom started whitewashing. But his energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day.
At this dark and hopeless moment he found a way out.
He took up his brush and went to work. Ben Rogers, his friend was walking along the street eating an apple. From time to time he produced sounds: ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he came closer, he called:
‘Tom!’
No answer. Tom had been whitewashing, then he looked at the fence with the eye of an artist. Tom’s mouth
