HOW TOM SAWYER GOT HIS FENCE WHITEWASHED.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4832, 16 September 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW TOM SAWYER GOT HIS FENCE WHITEWASHED.

Tom Sawyer having offended his' sole guardian, Aunt Polly, is by that sternly affectionate dame punished by being set to whitewash the fence in front of the garden. The world seemed a hollow mockery to Tom, who had planned fun for that day, and who knew that he would be the laughing-stock of all the boys when they came past and saw him set to work like a " nigger." But a great inspiration burst upon him, and he went tranquilly to work. What that inspiration was will appear from what follows. One of the boys, Ben. Kogers, comes by and pauses, eating a particularly fine apple. Tom does not see him. Ben stared a moment, and then said :

Hi-yi ! You're up a stump, ain't you ?" No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave another gentle sweep and tiurveyed 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 !" " Why, is it you,-Ben ? I wasn't noticing." " Say, I'm going in a swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could 1 But, of course, you'd rather work, wouldn't you ? Course you would."

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said : " What do you call work ?" " Why, ain't that work ?" Tom resumed his whitewashing and answered carelessly : " Well, may be it is, and may be it ain't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer." " Oh, come now, you don't mean to let on that you like it 1" The brush continued to move. .

" Like it ? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day ?" That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there —criticised the effect again, Ben watching every move, and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said :

" Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little." Tom considered ; was about to consent, but he altered his mind :

" No, no ; I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about the fence—right here on the street, you know—but if it was a back fence I wouldn't mind, and she would'nt. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence ; it's got to be done very careful ; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, may be two thousand, that can do it in the way it's got to be done." " No—is that so ? Oh, come now, lemme jußt try, only just a little. I'd let you, if you was me, Tom." " Ben, I'd like to, honest injun ; but Aunt Polly—well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him. Now, don't you see how I am fixed ? If you was to tackle this fence, and anything was to happen to it " " Oh, shuchs ; I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say—l'll give you the core of my apple." " Well, here. No, Ben ; now don't ; I m afeard " " 111 give all of it !" Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, 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, dangling his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material ; boys happened along every little while ; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash: By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair ; and when he was played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with ; and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, beside the things I have mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jewsharp, a piece of blue bottle glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a csuple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog collar—but no dog—the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange peel and a dilapidated old window sash. 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. Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the w riter of this book, he would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a boy is obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers, or performing a tread-mill, is work, whilst _ rolling nine-pins or climbing Mount Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drivo four-horse passenger coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money ; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work, and they would resign.— From Mark Twain's unpublished booh, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.