The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Марк Твен

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ stepped over promptly, and said:

      ‘Now you said you’d do it, now let’s see you do it.’

      ‘Don’t you crowd me, now; you better look out.’

      ‘Well, you said you’d do it – why don’t you do it?’

      ‘By jingoes, for two cents I will do it.’

      The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket, and held them out with derision.

      Tom struck them to the ground.

      In an instant both boys were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats; and for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other’s hair and clothes, punched and scratched each other’s noses, and covered themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and through the fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him with his fists.

      ‘Holler ’nuff!’ said he.

      The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying – mainly from rage.

      ‘Holler ’nuff!’ – and the pounding went on.

      At last the stranger got out a smothered ‘’nuff!’ and Tom let him up, and said, ‘Now that’ll learn you. Better look out who you’re fooling with next time.’

      The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head, and threatening what he would do to Tom the ‘next time he caught him out.’ To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather; and as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw it, and hit him between the shoulders, and then turned tail and ran like an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy to come outside; but the enemy only made faces at him through the window, and declined. At last the enemy’s mother appeared, and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away, but he said he ‘’lowed’ to ‘lag’ for that boy.

      He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in, her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labour became adamantine in its firmness.

      ¹ South-western for ‘afternoon.’

CHAPTER 2

      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, and the fragrance of the blossoms 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, 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 nature, and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board-fence nine feet high! It seemed to him that life was hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing 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 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 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 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 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 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 anybody. She say she spec’ Ma’rs Tom gwyne to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ‘long an’ ’tend to my own business – she ’lowed she’d ’tend to de whitewashin’.’

      ‘Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket – I won’t be gone only a minute. She won’t ever know.’

      ‘Oh, I dasn’t, Ma’rs Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me. ’Deed she would.’

      ‘She! She never licks anybody – whacks ’em over the head with her thimble, and who cares for that, I’d 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 taw.’

      ‘My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But, Ma’rs Tom, I’s powerful ’fraid ole missis.’

      ‘And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.’

      But Jim was only human – this 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 a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigour, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.

      But Tom’s energy did not last. 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 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 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 the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.

      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 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 at intervals, followed by a deep-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 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 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.’ The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the side-walk. ‘Ship up to back! Ling-a-ling-ling!’ His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides. ‘Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow-chow!’ his right hand СКАЧАТЬ