It was a bright and fresh Saturday morning. There was a song in every heart, cheer on every face and a spring in every step.
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence and all gladness left him. Thirty yards of fence, nine-feet high. had to be whitewashed. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank, did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching unwhitewashed fence and sat down on a tree box, discouraged. Jim came skipping out of the gate with a tin pail. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes before, but now it did not strike him so. Tom said: "Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some."
Jim shook his head and said: "Can't, Master Tom. The old lady told me not to help you.won't ever know. It give you a white marble Juwel human this attraction was too much by him. He put down his poil. Just
den, Aunt Polly, wlw was right behind bio, bit him hard with her slipper. In another moment, he who Bring down the street while Tom began whitewashing with great vigor
But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day and his sorrowe multiplied. Poon the other boys would come running along and they would make fun of him for having to work the very thought of it burnt him like fire He took out his worldly wealth and examined it-bits of toys, marbles and trash. It was not enough to buy half an hour of pure freedom. At this dark and hopeless moment, an inspiration burst upon him!
He took up his brush and started working enthusiastically. He saw Ben Rogers coming. He was eating an apple. He seemed to impersonate a steam boat as he walked but Tom paid no attention and kept whitewashing. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hi-Yit Tom, you're working!"
No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said: "Hello, old
chap, you got to work, hey?"
Tom wheeled suddenly and said: "Why, it's you, Ben! I didn't notice."
"Say-I'm going in a swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd rather work-wouldn't you? Course you would!"Tom contemplated the boy a hit and said: "What do you call work Den anrwered, "Why, ain't that work?
Tom resumed his whitewwshing and answered carelessly "Well, maybe it is and maybe it ain't. All I know is it suits Tom Sawyer"
"Oh name on, you don't mean to say that you like it? The brush continued som
"Like it? Well, I don't we why ought' to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewa fumes every day
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped niblifing his apple. Tom wept has lirsk daintily hack and furth stepped hack to note the effect added a touch here and therst Ben watched intently. Then he said. "Hay, Tom, let me whitewash a httle
To minidered, was about to consent, but he changed his mind: "No-ny-I had rathe not, Ben. You see, Aunt Pilly's awfully partiraler about this fence It's got to be done very carefully: There ain' ome boy in a thousand maybe tw
thousand, that can
do it the way it's got
to be dow
"Oh, 1 be just as careful. Now lemme try Bay-Ill give you the core of my apple"
"Well, here-No Ben, now don't. Im afraid
"Til give you ALL of
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance on his fare, but alacrity in his heart. And while Ben worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by dangled his legs, munched his apple. All the boys who cason to jeer, requested Tom to let them whitewash. After Ben, Tom had traded the ne chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, next, Johnny Miller was bought in for a dead rat and & string to swing it with-and so on, hour after hour. When the afternoon came, firim heing a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning. Tom was rolling in wealth. He had, besides the things mentioned before, twelve marbles, a harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a piece of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire crackers, a kitten with one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog collar, the handle of a knife and four pieces of orange peel.
He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while-plenty of company-and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.
sha Tom had discovered a great law of human action, that in order to make a person covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get, The boy mused a while over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances, and then went in to inform Aunt Polly that the task was done.