Hello,
It's Gina here.
We will now continue with Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Chapter 8.
Tom dodged this way and that through the lanes until he was well out of the path of the returning students,
And then he fell into a gloomy slow walk.
He crossed a small creek two or three times because of a common childhood superstition that crossing water throws pursuers off your trail.
Half an hour later,
He was slipping behind the Douglas Mansion at the top of Cardiff Hill,
And the schoolhouse was barely visible far off in the valley behind him.
He entered a dense wood,
Made his way without a path to the middle of it,
And sat down on a mossy patch under a wide spreading oak.
There wasn't even a breeze stirring.
The dead noon heat had even silenced the birds.
Nature lay in a trance,
Broken by no sound except the occasional distant tapping of a woodpecker,
And that only made the deep silence and loneliness feel even stronger.
The boy's soul was soaked in sadness.
His feelings matched his surroundings perfectly.
He sat a long time with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands,
Thinking.
It seemed to him that life was,
At best,
Nothing but trouble.
And more than half envied Jimmy Hoggs,
Who had been set free so recently.
It must have been very peaceful,
He thought,
To lie in sleep and dream forever,
With the wind whispering through the trees and stroking grass and flowers above the grave,
And nothing ever again to bother you or make you miserable.
If only he had a clean Sunday school record,
He could be willing to go and be finished with it all.
And as for that girl,
What had he done?
Nothing.
He had meant well,
And he'd been treated like a dog,
Like an actual dog.
She would be sorry someday,
Maybe when it was too late.
Ah,
If he could only die temporarily.
But the springy heart of youth can't be held down in one forced shape for long.
Soon Tom began drifting back,
Without noticing it,
Into the concerns of ordinary life again.
What if he turned his back now and disappeared mysteriously?
What if he went away,
Far,
Far away,
To unknown countries across the sea and never came back?
How would she feel then?
The idea of being a clown returned to him,
But it only filled him with disgust.
Jokes and silliness and spotted tights were offensive when they intruded on a spirit lifted into the vague,
Grand realm of romance.
No,
He would be a soldier and return after long years,
Battle-worn and famous.
No,
Better still,
He would join the Indians,
Hunt buffalo,
And go on the warpath in mountain ranges and across the trackless Great Plains of the Far West,
And then someday return as a great chief,
Bristling with feathers,
Terrifying with paint,
And burst into Sunday school on some sleepy summer morning with a blood-curdling war,
Whoop,
Squirr,
Scouring all his friends' eyes with unbearable envy.
But no,
There was something even flashier than that.
He would be a pirate.
That was it.
Now his future lay clear before him,
Glowing with unimaginable splendor.
He would,
His name would fill the world and make people shudder.
He,
How magnificent,
He would cut through the dancing seas in his long,
Low,
Black-holed racer,
The Spirit of the Storm,
With his grim flag flying at the bow.
And at the height of his fame,
He would suddenly appear back in the old village and stride into the church,
Brown and weather-beaten,
Wearing a black velvet doublet and trunks,
Huge jackboots,
A crimson sash,
A belt bristling with pistols,
A cutlass rusted with crime at his side,
A slouched hat,
And waving plumes,
And his black flag unfurled with a skull and crossbones while people whispered in swelling awe,
It's Tom Sawyer,
The pirate,
The Black Adventurer of the Spanish Main!
Yes,
It was decided.
His career was chosen.
He would run away from home and begin it.
He would start the very next morning.
So he needed to begin preparations now.
He would gather his resources.
He went to a long,
Rotten log nearby and began dinging under one end of it with his barlow knife.
Soon he struck wood that sounded hollow.
He put his hand in there and said the spell solemnly.
What hasn't come here,
Come.
What's here,
Stay here.
Then he scraped away the dirt and uncovered a pine shingle.
He lifted it and revealed a neat little treasure house,
Lined at the bottom and the sides with shingles.
Inside lay a single marble.
Tom's astonishment was limitless.
He scratched his head,
Baffled,
And said,
Well,
That beats everything.
Then he threw the marble away in irritation and stood thinking.
The truth was that a superstition he and all his friends believed to be foolproof had failed and failed completely.
The belief was this.
If you buried a marble with a proper spell and left it alone for two weeks,
Then returned and opened the spot with the spell as he just did,
You would find that every marble you had ever lost had gathered there in the meantime,
No matter how far apart they had been scattered.
Now the charm had plainly,
Undeniably failed.
Tom's whole structure of faith shook to its foundations.
He had heard many times of the trick working,
But never once of it failing.
It didn't occur to them that he had tried it himself several times before,
But could never find the hiding places afterwards.
He puzzled over it for a while and finally decided some witch had interfered and broken the spell.
He decided to confirm that.
He searched around until he found a small,
Sandy spot with a little funnel-shaped dent in it.
He lay down and put his mouth close into it and called,
Dooglebug,
Dooglebug,
Tell me what I want to know.
Dooglebug,
Dooglebug,
Tell me what I want to know.
The sand began to stir and soon a small black bug popped out for a second,
Then it darted back under with fright.
He doesn't dare tell.
So it was a witch who did it.
I just knew it.
He understood perfectly well that it was useless to fight witches,
So he gave up,
Discouraged.
But then it occurred to him that he might as well recover the marble he had just thrown away,
So he went and searched patiently for it,
But he couldn't find it.
So he went back to his treasure house and carefully placed himself exactly where he'd been standing when he threw the marble.
Then he took another marble from his pocket and tossed it the same way,
Saying,
Brother,
Go find your brother.
He watched where it stopped and went to look,
But it must have fallen short or gone too far,
So he tried twice more.
The third time worked.
The two marbles lay within a foot of each other.
Just then the blast of tiny tin trumpet came faintly down the green aisles of the forest.
Tom tore off his jacket and trousers,
Turned one suspender into a belt,
Raked brush away from behind the rotten log and revealed a rough bow and arrows,
A wooden sword,
A tin trumpet.
In an instance he grabbed them and bounded away,
Bare-legged,
His shirt fluttering.
Soon he stopped under a great elm,
Blew an answering blast,
And began to tiptoe,
Appearing cautiously around,
This way and that.
He said carefully to his imaginary group,
Halt,
My merry men,
Stay hidden till I blow.
Now Joe Harper appeared,
As lightly dressed and as elaborately armed as Tom.
Tom called,
Halt,
Who comes into Shearwood Forest without my pass?
Guy of Gisborne needs no man's pass.
Who are you there?
Dare to speak so,
Said Tom,
Prompting,
Because they spoke by the book from memory.
Who are you that dares to speak so?
I am Robin Hood,
As your worthless body shall soon learn.
Then you are truly a famous outlaw.
Gladly I will fight you for the right to pass through the merry wood.
Have at you.
They took their wooden swords,
Dumped their other gear on the ground,
And took fencing stances,
Foot to foot,
And began a serious,
Careful fight,
Two up and two down.
After a bit Tom said,
Now,
If you've got the hang of it,
Go faster.
So they went faster,
Panting and swearing with the work.
Before long Tom shouted,
Fall,
Fall,
Why won't you fall?
I won't,
Why won't you fall yourself?
You're getting the worst of it.
That doesn't matter,
I can't fall.
That's not how it goes in the book.
The book says,
Then with the one with the black-handed stroke,
He slew poor Guy of Gisborne.
You have to turn around and let me hit you on the back.
They couldn't argue with the official source,
So Joe turned and took a smack and fell.
Now,
Said Joe getting up,
You have to let me kill you,
That's fair.
I can't do that,
It's not in the book.
Well,
That's just downright mean,
That's all.
Well,
Look Joe,
You can be Friar Tuck,
Or March,
The miller's son,
And whack me with the quarterstaff,
And I'll be the sheriff of Nottingham,
And you can be Robin Hood for a while and kill me.
That satisfied him,
So they acted out those adventures.
Then Tom became Robin Hood again,
And he was allowed by the treacherous nun to bleed away his strength from his neglected wound.
And at last,
Joe,
Acting as a whole tribe of weeping outlaws,
Dragged him sadly forward,
Placed the bow on his weak hands,
And Tom said,
Where the arrow falls,
Bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree.
Then he shot the arrow and fell back,
And would have died,
But he landed on a nettle and jumped up far too cheerfully for a corpse.
The boys dressed again,
Hid their gear,
And went off sadly,
Grieving that there was no outlaws anymore and wondering what modern civilization could possibly have done to make up for this loss.
They said they'd rather be outlaws for one year in Sherald Forest than be the President of the United States forever.
