MRS LINDE. I could not endure life without work. All my life, as long as I can remember, I have worked, and it has been my greatest and only pleasure. But now I am quite alone in the world—my life is so dreadfully empty and I feel so forsaken. There is not the least pleasure in working for one's self. Nils, give me someone and something to work for.


KROGSTAD. I don't trust that. It is nothing but a woman's overstrained sense of generosity that prompts you to make such an offer of yourself.


MRS LINDE. Have you ever noticed anything of the sort in me?


KROGSTAD. Could you really do it? Tell me—do you know all about my past life?


KROGSTAD. And do you know what they think of me here?


MRS LINDE. You seemed to me to imply that with me you might have been quite another man.


KROGSTAD. I am certain of it.


MRS LINDE. Is it too late now?


KROGSTAD. Christine, are you saying this deliberately? Yes, I am sure you are. I see it in your face. Have you really the courage, then—?


MRS LINDE. I want to be a mother to someone, and your children need a mother. We two need each other. Nils, I have faith in your real character—I can dare anything together with you.


KROGSTAD. [grasps her hands]. Thanks, thanks, Christine! Now I shall find a way to clear myself in the eyes of the world. Ah, but I forgot—


MRS LINDE. [listening]. Hush! The Tarantella! Go, go!


KROGSTAD. Why? What is it?


MRS LINDE. Do you hear them up there? When that is over, we may expect them back.


KROGSTAD. Yes, yes—I will go. But it is all no use. Of course you are not aware what steps I have taken in the matter of the Helmers.


MRS LINDE. Yes, I know all about that.


KROGSTAD. And in spite of that have you the courage to—?


MRS LINDE. I understand very well to what lengths a man like you might be driven by despair.


KROGSTAD. If I could only undo what I have done!


MRS LINDE. You cannot. Your letter is lying in the letter-box now.


KROGSTAD. Are you sure of that?


KROGSTAD. [with a searching look at her]. Is that what it all means?—that you want to save your friend at any cost? Tell me frankly. Is that it?


MRS LINDE. Nils, a woman who has once sold herself for another's sake, doesn't do it a second time.


KROGSTAD. I will ask for my letter back.


KROGSTAD. Yes, of course I will. I will wait here until Helmer comes; I will tell him he must give me my letter back—that it only concerns my dismissal—that he is not to read it—


KROGSTAD. But, tell me, wasn't it for that very purpose that you asked me to meet you here?


MRS LINDE. In my first moment of fright, it was. But twenty-four hours have elapsed since then, and in that time I have witnessed incredible things in this house. Helmer must know all about it. This unhappy secret must be disclosed; they must have a complete understanding between them, which is impossible with all this concealment and falsehood going on.


KROGSTAD. Very well, if you will take the responsibility. But there is one thing I can do in any case, and I shall do it at once.


MRS LINDE. [listening]. You must be quick and go! The dance is over; we are not safe a moment longer.


KROGSTAD. I will wait for you below.


MRS LINDE. Yes, do. You must see me back to my door...


KROGSTAD. I have never had such an amazing piece of good fortune in my life! [Goes out through the outer door. The door between the room and the hall remains open.]


MRS LINDE. [tidying up the room and laying her hat and cloak ready]. What a difference! what a difference! Someone to work for and live for—a home to bring comfort into. That I will do, indeed. I wish they would be quick and come—[Listens.] Ah, there they are now. I must put on my things. [Takes up her hat and cloak. HELMER'S and NORA'S voices are heard outside; a key is turned, and HELMER brings NORA almost by force into the hall. She is in an Italian costume with a large black shawl around her; he is in evening dress, and a black domino which is flying open.]


NORA. [hanging back in the doorway, and struggling with him]. No, no, no!—don't take me in. I want to go upstairs again; I don't want to leave so early.


HELMER. But, my dearest Nora—


NORA. Please, Torvald dear—please, please—only an hour more.


HELMER. Not a single minute, my sweet Nora. You know that was our agreement. Come along into the room; you are catching cold standing there. [He brings her gently into the room, in spite of her resistance.]


MRS LINDE. Good evening.


HELMER. You here, so late, Mrs Linde?


MRS LINDE. Yes, you must excuse me; I was so anxious to see Nora in her dress.


NORA. Have you been sitting here waiting for me?


MRS LINDE. Yes, unfortunately I came too late, you had already gone upstairs; and I thought I couldn't go away again without having seen you.


HELMER. [taking off NORA'S shawl]. Yes, take a good look at her. I think she is worth looking at. Isn't she charming, Mrs Linde?


MRS LINDE. Yes, indeed she is.


HELMER. Doesn't she look remarkably pretty? Everyone thought so at the dance. But she is terribly self-willed, this sweet little person. What are we to do with her? You will hardly believe that I had almost to bring her away by force.


NORA. Torvald, you will repent not having let me stay, even if it were only for half an hour.


HELMER. Listen to her, Mrs Linde! She had danced her Tarantella, and it had been a tremendous success, as it deserved—although possibly the performance was a trifle too realistic—a little more so, I mean, than was strictly compatible with the limitations of art. But never mind about that! The chief thing is, she had made a success—she had made a tremendous success. Do you think I was going to let her remain there after that, and spoil the effect? No, indeed! I took my charming little Capri maiden—my capricious little Capri maiden, I should say—on my arm; took one quick turn round the room; a curtsey on either side, and, as they say in novels, the beautiful apparition disappeared. An exit ought always to be effective, Mrs Linde; but that is what I cannot make Nora understand. Pooh! this room is hot. [Throws his domino on a chair, and opens the door of his room.] Hullo! it's all dark in here. Oh, of course—excuse me—. [He goes in, and lights some candles.]


NORA. [in a hurried and breathless whisper]. Well?


MRS LINDE. [in a low voice]. I have had a talk with him.


NORA. Yes, and—


MRS LINDE. Nora, you must tell your husband all about it.


NORA. [in an expressionless voice]. I knew it.


MRS LINDE. You have nothing to be afraid of as far as Krogstad is concerned; but you must tell him.


NORA. I won't tell him.


MRS LINDE. Then the letter will.


NORA. Thank you, Christine. Now I know what I must do. Hush—!


HELMER. [coming in again]. Well, Mrs Linde, have you admired her?


MRS LINDE. Yes, and now I will say goodnight.


HELMER. What, already? Is this yours, this knitting?


MRS LINDE. [taking it]. Yes, thank you, I had very nearly forgotten it.


HELMER. Do you know, you ought to embroider.


MRS LINDE. Really? Why?


HELMER. Yes, it's far more becoming. Let me show you. You hold the embroidery thus in your left hand, and use the needle with the right—like this—with a long, easy sweep. Do you see?


HELMER. But in the case of knitting—that can never be anything but ungraceful; look here—the arms close together, the knitting-needles going up and down—it has a sort of Chinese effect—. That was really excellent champagne they gave us.


MRS LINDE. Well,—goodnight, Nora, and don't be self-willed any more.


HELMER. That's right, Mrs Linde.


HELMER. [accompanying her to the door]. Goodnight, goodnight. I hope you will get home all right. I should be very happy to—but you haven't any great distance to go. Goodnight, goodnight. [She goes out; he shuts the door after her, and comes in again.] Ah!—at last we have got rid of her. She is a frightful bore, that woman.


NORA. Aren't you very tired, Torvald?


HELMER. No, not in the least.


HELMER. Not a bit. On the contrary, I feel extraordinarily lively. And you?—you really look both tired and sleepy.


NORA. Yes, I am very tired. I want to go to sleep at once.


HELMER. There, you see it was quite right of me not to let you stay there any longer.


NORA. Everything you do is quite right, Torvald.


HELMER. [kissing her on the forehead]. Now my little skylark is speaking reasonably. Did you notice what good spirits Rank was in this evening?


NORA. Really? Was he? I didn't speak to him at all.


HELMER. And I very little, but I have not for a long time seen him in such good form. [Looks for a while at her and then goes nearer to her.] It is delightful to be at home by ourselves again, to be all alone with you—you fascinating, charming little darling!


HELMER. Why shouldn't I look at my dearest treasure?—at all the beauty that is mine, all my very own?


NORA. [going to the other side of the table]. You mustn't say things like that to me tonight.


HELMER. [following her]. You have still got the Tarantella in your blood, I see. And it makes you more captivating than ever. Listen—the guests are beginning to go now. [In a lower voice.] Nora—soon the whole house will be quiet.


NORA. Yes, I hope so.


HELMER. Yes, my own darling Nora. Do you know, when I am out at a party with you like this, why I speak so little to you, keep away from you, and only send a stolen glance in your direction now and then?—do you know why I do that? It is because I make believe to myself that we are secretly in love, and you are my secretly promised bride, and that no one suspects there is anything between us.


NORA. Yes, yes—I know very well your thoughts are with me all the time.


HELMER. And when we are leaving, and I am putting the shawl over your beautiful young shoulders—on your lovely neck—then I imagine that you are my young bride and that we have just come from the wedding, and I am bringing you for the first time into our home—to be alone with you for the first time—quite alone with my shy little darling! All this evening I have longed for nothing but you. When I watched the seductive figures of the Tarantella, my blood was on fire; I could endure it no longer, and that was why I brought you down so early—


NORA. Go away, Torvald! You must let me go. I won't—


HELMER. What's that? You're joking, my little Nora! You won't—you won't? Am I not your husband—? [A knock is heard at the outer door.]


NORA. [starting]. Did you hear—?


HELMER. [going into the hall]. Who is it?


RANK. [outside]. It is I. May I come in for a moment?


HELMER. [in a fretful whisper]. Oh, what does he want now? [Aloud.] Wait a minute! [Unlocks the door.] Come, that's kind of you not to pass by our door.


RANK. I thought I heard your voice, and felt as if I should like to look in. [With a swift glance round.] Ah, yes!—these dear familiar rooms. You are very happy and cosy in here, you two.


HELMER. It seems to me that you looked after yourself pretty well upstairs too.


RANK. Excellently. Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't one enjoy everything in this world?—at any rate as much as one can, and as long as one can. The wine was capital—


HELMER. Especially the champagne.


RANK. So you noticed that too? It is almost incredible how much I managed to put away!


NORA. Torvald drank a great deal of champagne tonight too.


NORA. Yes, and he is always in such good spirits afterwards.


RANK. Well, why should one not enjoy a merry evening after a well-spent day?


HELMER. Well spent? I am afraid I can't take credit for that.


RANK. [clapping him on the back]. But I can, you know!


NORA. Doctor Rank, you must have been occupied with some scientific investigation today.


RANK. Exactly.


HELMER. Just listen!—little Nora talking about scientific investigations!


NORA. And may I congratulate you on the result?


NORA. Was it favourable, then?


RANK. The best possible, for both doctor and patient—certainty.


NORA. [quickly and searchingly]. Certainty?


RANK. Absolute certainty. So wasn't I entitled to make a merry evening of it after that?


NORA. Yes, you certainly were, Doctor Rank.


HELMER. I think so too, so long as you don't have to pay for it in the morning.


RANK. Oh well, one can't have anything in this life without paying for it.


NORA. Doctor Rank—are you fond of fancy-dress balls?


RANK. Yes, if there is a fine lot of pretty costumes.


NORA. Tell me—what shall we two wear at the next?


HELMER. Little featherbrain!—are you thinking of the next already?


RANK. We two? Yes, I can tell you. You shall go as a good fairy—


HELMER. Yes, but what do you suggest as an appropriate costume for that?


RANK. Let your wife go dressed just as she is in everyday life.


HELMER. That was really very prettily turned. But can't you tell us what you will be?


RANK. Yes, my dear friend, I have quite made up my mind about that.


RANK. At the next fancy-dress ball I shall be invisible.


HELMER. That's a good joke!


RANK. There is a big black hat—have you never heard of hats that make you invisible? If you put one on, no one can see you.


RANK. But I am clean forgetting what I came for. Helmer, give me a cigar—one of the dark Havanas.


HELMER. With the greatest pleasure. [Offers him his case.]


RANK. [takes a cigar and cuts off the end]. Thanks.


NORA. [striking a match]. Let me give you a light.


RANK. Thank you. [She holds the match for him to light his cigar.] And now goodbye!


RANK. Thank you for that wish.


NORA. Wish me the same.


RANK. You? Well, if you want me to sleep well! And thanks for the light. [He nods to them both and goes out.]


HELMER. [in a subdued voice]. He has drunk more than he ought.


NORA. [absently]. Maybe. [HELMER takes a bunch of keys out of his pocket and goes into the hall.] Torvald! what are you going to do there?


HELMER. Emptying the letter-box; it is quite full; there will be no room to put the newspaper in tomorrow morning.


NORA. Are you going to work tonight?


HELMER. You know quite well I'm not. What is this? Someone has been at the lock.


NORA. At the lock—?


HELMER. Yes, someone has. What can it mean? I should never have thought the maid—. Here is a broken hairpin. Nora, it is one of yours.


NORA. [quickly]. Then it must have been the children—


HELMER. Then you must get them out of those ways. There, at last I have got it open. [Takes out the contents of the letter-box, and calls to the kitchen.] Helen!—Helen, put out the light over the front door. [Goes back into the room and shuts the door into the hall. He holds out his hand full of letters.] Look at that—look what a heap of them there are. [Turning them over.] What on earth is that?


NORA. [at the window]. The letter—No! Torvald, no!


HELMER. Two cards—of Rank's.


NORA. Of Doctor Rank's?


HELMER. [looking at them]. Doctor Rank. They were on the top. He must have put them in when he went out.


NORA. Is there anything written on them?


HELMER. There is a black cross over the name. Look there—what an uncomfortable idea! It looks as if he were announcing his own death.


NORA. It is just what he is doing.


HELMER. What? Do you know anything about it? Has he said anything to you?


NORA. Yes. He told me that when the cards came it would be his leave-taking from us. He means to shut himself up and die.


HELMER. My poor old friend! Certainly I knew we should not have him very long with us. But so soon! And so he hides himself away like a wounded animal.


NORA. If it has to happen, it is best it should be without a word—don't you think so, Torvald?


HELMER. [walking up and down]. He had so grown into our lives. I can't think of him as having gone out of them. He, with his sufferings and his loneliness, was like a cloudy background to our sunlit happiness. Well, perhaps it is best so. For him, anyway. [Standing still.] And perhaps for us too, Nora. We two are thrown quite upon each other now. [Puts his arms round her.] My darling wife, I don't feel as if I could hold you tight enough. Do you know, Nora, I have often wished that you might be threatened by some great danger, so that I might risk my life's blood, and everything, for your sake.


NORA. [disengages herself, and says firmly and decidedly]. Now you must read your letters, Torvald.


HELMER. No, no; not tonight. I want to be with you, my darling wife.


NORA. With the thought of your friend's death—


HELMER. You are right, it has affected us both. Something ugly has come between us—the thought of the horrors of death. We must try and rid our minds of that. Until then—we will each go to our own room.


NORA. [hanging on his neck]. Goodnight, Torvald—Goodnight!


HELMER. [kissing her on the forehead]. Goodnight, my little singing-bird. Sleep sound, Nora. Now I will read my letters through. [He takes his letters and goes into his room, shutting the door after him.]


NORA. [gropes distractedly about, seizes HELMER'S domino, throws it round her, while she says in quick, hoarse, spasmodic whispers]. Never to see him again. Never! Never! [Puts her shawl over her head.] Never to see my children again either—never again. Never! Never!—Ah! the icy, black water—the unfathomable depths—If only it were over! He has got it now—now he is reading it. Goodbye, Torvald and my children! [She is about to rush out through the hall, when HELMER opens his door hurriedly and stands with an open letter in his hand.]


HELMER. What is this? Do you know what is in this letter?


NORA. Yes, I know. Let me go! Let me get out!


HELMER. [holding her back]. Where are you going?


NORA. [trying to get free]. You shan't save me, Torvald!


HELMER. [reeling]. True? Is this true, that I read here? Horrible! No, no—it is impossible that it can be true.


NORA. It is true. I have loved you above everything else in the world.


HELMER. Oh, don't let us have any silly excuses.


NORA. [taking a step towards him]. Torvald—!


HELMER. Miserable creature—what have you done?


NORA. Let me go. You shall not suffer for my sake. You shall not take it upon yourself.


HELMER. No tragic airs, please. [Locks the hall door.] Here you shall stay and give me an explanation. Do you understand what you have done? Answer me! Do you understand what you have done?


NORA. [looks steadily at him and says with a growing look of coldness in her face]. Yes, now I am beginning to understand thoroughly.


HELMER. [walking about the room]. What a horrible awakening! All these eight years—she who was my joy and pride—a hypocrite, a liar—worse, worse—a criminal! The unutterable ugliness of it all!—For shame! For shame! [NORA is silent and looks steadily at him. He stops in front of her.] I ought to have suspected that something of the sort would happen. I ought to have foreseen it. All your father's want of principle—be silent!—all your father's want of principle has come out in you. No religion, no morality, no sense of duty—. How I am punished for having winked at what he did! I did it for your sake, and this is how you repay me.


NORA. Yes, that's just it.


HELMER. Now you have destroyed all my happiness. You have ruined all my future. It is horrible to think of! I am in the power of an unscrupulous man; he can do what he likes with me, ask anything he likes of me, give me any orders he pleases—I dare not refuse. And I must sink to such miserable depths because of a thoughtless woman!


NORA. When I am out of the way, you will be free.


HELMER. No fine speeches, please. Your father had always plenty of those ready, too. What good would it be to me if you were out of the way, as you say? Not the slightest. He can make the affair known everywhere; and if he does, I may be falsely suspected of having been a party to your criminal action. Very likely people will think I was behind it all—that it was I who prompted you! And I have to thank you for all this—you whom I have cherished during the whole of our married life. Do you understand now what it is you have done for me?


NORA. [coldly and quietly]. Yes.


HELMER. It is so incredible that I can't take it in. But we must come to some understanding. Take off that shawl. Take it off, I tell you. I must try and appease him some way or another. The matter must be hushed up at any cost. And as for you and me, it must appear as if everything between us were just as before—but naturally only in the eyes of the world. You will still remain in my house, that is a matter of course. But I shall not allow you to bring up the children; I dare not trust them to you. To think that I should be obliged to say so to one whom I have loved so dearly, and whom I still—. No, that is all over. From this moment happiness is not the question; all that concerns us is to save the remains, the fragments, the appearance—


[A ring is heard at the front-door bell.]


HELMER. [with a start]. What is that? So late! Can the worst—? Can he—? Hide yourself, Nora. Say you are ill.


[NORA stands motionless. HELMER goes and unlocks the hall door.]


MAID. [half-dressed, comes to the door]. A letter for the mistress.


HELMER. Give it to me. [Takes the letter, and shuts the door.] Yes, it is from him. You shall not have it; I will read it myself.


NORA. Yes, read it.


HELMER. [standing by the lamp]. I scarcely have the courage to do it. It may mean ruin for both of us. No, I must know. [Tears open the letter, runs his eye over a few lines, looks at a paper enclosed, and gives a shout of joy.] Nora! [She looks at him questioningly.] Nora!—No, I must read it once again—. Yes, it is true! I am saved! Nora, I am saved!


NORA. And I?


HELMER. You too, of course; we are both saved, both you and I. Look, he sends you your bond back. He says he regrets and repents—that a happy change in his life—never mind what he says! We are saved, Nora! No one can do anything to you. Oh, Nora, Nora!—no, first I must destroy these hateful things. Let me see—. [Takes a look at the bond.] No, no, I won't look at it. The whole thing shall be nothing but a bad dream to me. [Tears up the bond and both letters, throws them all into the stove, and watches them burn.] There—now it doesn't exist any longer. He says that since Christmas Eve you—. These must have been three dreadful days for you, Nora.


NORA. I have fought a hard fight these three days.


HELMER. And suffered agonies, and seen no way out but—. No, we won't call any of the horrors to mind. We will only shout with joy, and keep saying, "It's all over! It's all over!" Listen to me, Nora. You don't seem to realise that it is all over. What is this?—such a cold, set face! My poor little Nora, I quite understand; you don't feel as if you could believe that I have forgiven you. But it is true, Nora, I swear it; I have forgiven you everything. I know that what you did, you did out of love for me.


NORA. That is true.


HELMER. You have loved me as a wife ought to love her husband. Only you had not sufficient knowledge to judge of the means you used. But do you suppose you are any the less dear to me, because you don't understand how to act on your own responsibility? No, no; only lean on me; I will advise you and direct you. I should not be a man if this womanly helplessness did not just give you a double attractiveness in my eyes. You must not think anymore about the hard things I said in my first moment of consternation, when I thought everything was going to overwhelm me. I have forgiven you, Nora; I swear to you I have forgiven you.


NORA. Thank you for your forgiveness. [She goes out through the door to the right.]


HELMER. No, don't go—. [Looks in.] What are you doing in there?


NORA. [from within]. Taking off my fancy dress.


HELMER. [standing at the open door]. Yes, do. Try and calm yourself, and make your mind easy again, my frightened little singing-bird. Be at rest, and feel secure; I have broad wings to shelter you under. [Walks up and down by the door.] How warm and cosy our home is, Nora. Here is shelter for you; here I will protect you like a hunted dove that I have saved from a hawk's claws; I will bring peace to your poor beating heart. It will come, little by little, Nora, believe me. Tomorrow morning you will look upon it all quite differently; soon everything will be just as it was before. Very soon you won't need me to assure you that I have forgiven you; you will yourself feel the certainty that I have done so. Can you suppose I should ever think of such a thing as repudiating you, or even reproaching you? You have no idea what a true man's heart is like, Nora. There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying, to a man, in the knowledge that he has forgiven his wife—forgiven her freely, and with all his heart. It seems as if that had made her, as it were, doubly his own; he has given her a new life, so to speak; and she has in a way become both wife and child to him. So you shall be for me after this, my little scared, helpless darling. Have no anxiety about anything, Nora; only be frank and open with me, and I will serve as will and conscience both to you—. What is this? Not gone to bed? Have you changed your things?


NORA. [in everyday dress]. Yes, Torvald, I have changed my things now.


HELMER. But what for?—so late as this.


NORA. I shall not sleep tonight.


HELMER. But, my dear Nora—


NORA. [looking at her watch]. It is not so very late. Sit down here, Torvald. You and I have much to say to one another. [She sits down at one side of the table.]


HELMER. Nora—what is this?—this cold, set face?


NORA. Sit down. It will take some time; I have a lot to talk over with you.


HELMER. [sits down at the opposite side of the table]. You alarm me, Nora!—and I don't understand you.


NORA. No, that is just it. You don't understand me, and I have never understood you either—before tonight. No, you mustn't interrupt me. You must simply listen to what I say. Torvald, this is a settling of accounts.


HELMER. What do you mean by that?


NORA. [after a short silence]. Isn't there one thing that strikes you as strange in our sitting here like this?


HELMER. What is that?


NORA. We have been married now eight years. Does it not occur to you that this is the first time we two, you and I, husband and wife, have had a serious conversation?


HELMER. What do you mean by serious?


NORA. In all these eight years—longer than that—from the very beginning of our acquaintance, we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject.


HELMER. Was it likely that I would be continually and forever telling you about worries that you could not help me to bear?


NORA. I am not speaking about business matters. I say that we have never sat down in earnest together to try and get at the bottom of anything.


HELMER. But, dearest Nora, would it have been any good to you?


NORA. That is just it; you have never understood me. I have been greatly wronged, Torvald—first by papa and then by you.


HELMER. What! By us two—by us two, who have loved you better than anyone else in the world?


NORA. [shaking her head]. You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me.


HELMER. Nora, what do I hear you saying?


NORA. It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—


HELMER. What sort of an expression is that to use about our marriage?


NORA. [undisturbed]. I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you—or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which—I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman—just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.


HELMER. How unreasonable and how ungrateful you are, Nora! Have you not been happy here?


NORA. No, I have never been happy. I thought I was, but it has never really been so.


HELMER. Not—not happy!


NORA. No, only merry. And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.


HELMER. There is some truth in what you say—exaggerated and strained as your view of it is. But for the future it shall be different. Playtime shall be over, and lesson-time shall begin.


NORA. Whose lessons? Mine, or the children's?


HELMER. Both yours and the children's, my darling Nora.


NORA. Alas, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being a proper wife for you.


HELMER. And you can say that!


NORA. And I—how am I fitted to bring up the children?


NORA. Didn't you say so yourself a little while ago—that you dare not trust me to bring them up?


HELMER. In a moment of anger! Why do you pay any heed to that?


NORA. Indeed, you were perfectly right. I am not fit for the task. There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself—you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now.


NORA. I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer.


NORA. I am going away from here now, at once. I am sure Christine will take me in for the night—


HELMER. You are out of your mind! I won't allow it! I forbid you!


NORA. It is no use forbidding me anything any longer. I will take with me what belongs to myself. I will take nothing from you, either now or later.


HELMER. What sort of madness is this!


NORA. Tomorrow I shall go home—I mean, to my old home. It will be easiest for me to find something to do there.


HELMER. You blind, foolish woman!


HELMER. To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don't consider what people will say!


NORA. I cannot consider that at all. I only know that it is necessary for me.


HELMER. It's shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties.


NORA. What do you consider my most sacred duties?


HELMER. Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?


NORA. I have other duties just as sacred.


HELMER. That you have not. What duties could those be?


NORA. Duties to myself.


HELMER. Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.


NORA. I don't believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are—or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.


HELMER. Can you not understand your place in your own home? Have you not a reliable guide in such matters as that?—have you no religion?


NORA. I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is.


NORA. I know nothing but what the clergyman said, when I went to be confirmed. He told us that religion was this, and that, and the other. When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me.


HELMER. This is unheard of in a girl of your age! But if religion cannot lead you aright, let me try and awaken your conscience. I suppose you have some moral sense? Or—answer me—am I to think you have none?


NORA. I assure you, Torvald, that is not an easy question to answer. I really don't know. The thing perplexes me altogether. I only know that you and I look at it in quite a different light. I am learning, too, that the law is quite another thing from what I supposed; but I find it impossible to convince myself that the law is right. According to it a woman has no right to spare her old dying father, or to save her husband's life. I can't believe that.


HELMER. You talk like a child. You don't understand the conditions of the world in which you live.


NORA. No, I don't. But now I am going to try. I am going to see if I can make out who is right, the world or I.


HELMER. You are ill, Nora; you are delirious; I almost think you are out of your mind.


NORA. I have never felt my mind so clear and certain as tonight.


HELMER. And is it with a clear and certain mind that you forsake your husband and your children?


NORA. Yes, it is.


HELMER. Then there is only one possible explanation.


NORA. What is that?


NORA. No, that is just it.


HELMER. Nora!—and you can say that?


NORA. It gives me great pain, Torvald, for you have always been so kind to me, but I cannot help it. I do not love you any more.


HELMER. [regaining his composure]. Is that a clear and certain conviction too?


NORA. Yes, absolutely clear and certain. That is the reason why I will not stay here any longer.


HELMER. And can you tell me what I have done to forfeit your love?


NORA. Yes, indeed I can. It was tonight, when the wonderful thing did not happen; then I saw you were not the man I had thought you were.


HELMER. Explain yourself better. I don't understand you.


NORA. I have waited so patiently for eight years; for, goodness knows, I knew very well that wonderful things don't happen every day. Then this horrible misfortune came upon me; and then I felt quite certain that the wonderful thing was going to happen at last. When Krogstad's letter was lying out there, never for a moment did I imagine that you would consent to accept this man's conditions. I was so absolutely certain that you would say to him: Publish the thing to the whole world. And when that was done—


HELMER. Yes, what then?—when I had exposed my wife to shame and disgrace?


NORA. When that was done, I was so absolutely certain, you would come forward and take everything upon yourself, and say: I am the guilty one.


NORA. You mean that I would never have accepted such a sacrifice on your part? No, of course not. But what would my assurances have been worth against yours? That was the wonderful thing which I hoped for and feared; and it was to prevent that, that I wanted to kill myself.


HELMER. I would gladly work night and day for you, Nora—bear sorrow and want for your sake. But no man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves.


NORA. It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done.


HELMER. Oh, you think and talk like a heedless child.


NORA. Maybe. But you neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over—and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you—when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. [Getting up.] Torvald—it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children—. Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!


HELMER. [sadly]. I see, I see. An abyss has opened between us—there is no denying it. But, Nora, would it not be possible to fill it up?


NORA. As I am now, I am no wife for you.


HELMER. I have it in me to become a different man.


NORA. Perhaps—if your doll is taken away from you.


HELMER. But to part!—to part from you! No, no, Nora, I can't understand that idea.


NORA. [going out to the right]. That makes it all the more certain that it must be done. [She comes back with her cloak and hat and a small bag which she puts on a chair by the table.]


HELMER. Nora, Nora, not now! Wait until tomorrow.


NORA. [putting on her cloak]. I cannot spend the night in a strange man's room.


HELMER. But can't we live here like brother and sister—?


NORA. [putting on her hat]. You know very well that would not last long. [Puts the shawl round her.] Goodbye, Torvald. I won't see the little ones. I know they are in better hands than mine. As I am now, I can be of no use to them.


NORA. How can I tell? I have no idea what is going to become of me.


HELMER. But you are my wife, whatever becomes of you.


NORA. Listen, Torvald. I have heard that when a wife deserts her husband's house, as I am doing now, he is legally freed from all obligations towards her. In any case, I set you free from all your obligations. You are not to feel yourself bound in the slightest way, any more than I shall. There must be perfect freedom on both sides. See, here is your ring back. Give me mine.


HELMER. That too?


NORA. That too.


NORA. That's right. Now it is all over. I have put the keys here. The maids know all about everything in the house—better than I do. Tomorrow, after I have left her, Christine will come here and pack up my own things that I brought with me from home. I will have them sent after me.


HELMER. All over! All over!—Nora, shall you never think of me again?


NORA. I know I shall often think of you, the children, and this house.


HELMER. May I write to you, Nora?


NORA. No—never. You must not do that.


NORA. Nothing—nothing—


HELMER. Let me help you if you are in want.


NORA. No. I can receive nothing from a stranger.


HELMER. Nora—can I never be anything more than a stranger to you?


NORA. [taking her bag]. Ah, Torvald, the most wonderful thing of all would have to happen.


HELMER. Tell me what that would be!


NORA. Both you and I would have to be so changed that—. Oh, Torvald, I don't believe any longer in wonderful things happening.


HELMER. But I will believe in it. Tell me! So changed that—?


NORA. That our life together would be a real wedlock. Goodbye. [She goes out through the hall.]


HELMER. [sinks down on a chair at the door and buries his face in his hands]. Nora! Nora! [Looks round, and rises.] Empty. She is gone. [A hope flashes across his mind.] The most wonderful thing of all—?


[The sound of a door shutting is heard from below.]


Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete


Author: Mark Twain


Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #74] Most recently updated: May 10, 2025


Credits: David Widger


CHAPTER I. Y-o-u-u Tom—Aunt Polly Decides Upon her Duty—Tom Practices Music—The Challenge—A Private Entrance


CHAPTER II. Strong Temptations—Strategic Movements—The Innocents Beguiled


CHAPTER III. Tom as a General—Triumph and Reward—Dismal Felicity—Commission and Omission


CHAPTER IV. Mental Acrobatics—Attending Sunday—School—The Superintendent—"Showing off"—Tom Lionized


CHAPTER V. A Useful Minister—In Church—The Climax


CHAPTER VI. Self-Examination—Dentistry—The Midnight Charm—Witches and Devils—Cautious Approaches—Happy Hours


CHAPTER VII. A Treaty Entered Into—Early Lessons—A Mistake Made


CHAPTER VIII. Tom Decides on his Course—Old Scenes Re-enacted


CHAPTER IX. A Solemn Situation—Grave Subjects Introduced—Injun Joe Explains


CHAPTER X. The Solemn Oath—Terror Brings Repentance—Mental Punishment


CHAPTER XI. Muff Potter Comes Himself—Tom's Conscience at Work


CHAPTER XII. Tom Shows his Generosity—Aunt Polly Weakens


CHAPTER XIII. The Young Pirates—Going to the Rendezvous—The Camp—Fire Talk


CHAPTER XIV. Camp-Life—A Sensation—Tom Steals Away from Camp


CHAPTER XV. Tom Reconnoiters—Learns the Situation—Reports at Camp


CHAPTER XVI. A Day's Amusements—Tom Reveals a Secret—The Pirates take a Lesson—A Night Surprise—An Indian War


CHAPTER XVII. Memories of the Lost Heroes—The Point in Tom's Secret


CHAPTER XVIII. Tom's Feelings Investigated—Wonderful Dream—Becky Thatcher Overshadowed—Tom Becomes Jealous—Black Revenge


CHAPTER XIX. Tom Tells the Truth


CHAPTER XX. Becky in a Dilemma—Tom's Nobility Asserts Itself


CHAPTER XXI. Youthful Eloquence—Compositions by the Young Ladies—A Lengthy Vision—The Boy's Vengeance Satisfied


CHAPTER XXII. Tom's Confidence Betrayed—Expects Signal Punishment


CHAPTER XXIII. Old Muff's Friends—Muff Potter in Court—Muff Potter Saved


CHAPTER XXIV. Tom as the Village Hero—Days of Splendor and Nights of Horror—Pursuit of Injun Joe


CHAPTER XXV. About Kings and Diamonds—Search for the Treasure—Dead People and Ghosts


CHAPTER XXVI. The Haunted House—Sleepy Ghosts—A Box of Gold—Bitter Luck


CHAPTER XXVII. Doubts to be Settled—The Young Detectives


CHAPTER XXVIII. An Attempt at No. Two—Huck Mounts Guard


CHAPTER XXIX. The Pic-nic—Huck on Injun Joe's Track—The "Revenge" Job—Aid for the Widow


CHAPTER XXX. The Welshman Reports—Huck Under Fire—The Story Circulated —A New Sensation—Hope Giving Way to Despair


CHAPTER XXXI. An Exploring Expedition—Trouble Commences—Lost in the Cave—Total Darkness—Found but not Saved


CHAPTER XXXII. Tom tells the Story of their Escape—Tom's Enemy in Safe Quarters


CHAPTER XXXIII. The Fate of Injun Joe—Huck and Tom Compare Notes —An Expedition to the Cave—Protection Against Ghosts—"An Awful Snug Place"—A Reception at the Widow Douglas's


CHAPTER XXXIV. Springing a Secret—Mr. Jones' Surprise a Failure


CHAPTER XXXV. A New Order of Things—Poor Huck—New Adventures Planned


Tom Sawyer


Tom at Home


Aunt Polly Beguiled


A Good Opportunity


Who's Afraid


'Tendin' to Business


Ain't that Work?


Cat and Toys


Becky Thatcher


After the Battle


"Showing Off"


Mary


Tom Contemplating


Dampened Ardor


Youth


Using the "Barlow"


The Church


Necessities


Tom as a Sunday-School Hero


The Prize


At Church


The Model Boy


The Church Choir


A Side Show


Result of Playing in Church


The Pinch-Bug


Mother Hopkins


Result of Tom's Truthfulness


Tom as an Artist


Interrupted Courtship


The Master


Vain Pleading


The Grave in the Woods


Tom Meditates


Robin Hood and his Foe


Death of Robin Hood


Tom's Mode of Egress


Tom's Effort at Prayer


The Graveyard


Forewarnings


Tom's Talk with his Aunt


Injun Joe's two Victims


In the Coils


Aunt Polly seeks Information


A General Good Time


On Board Their First Prize


The Pirates Ashore


Wild Life


The Pirate's Bath


The Pleasant Stroll


The Search for the Drowned


The Mysterious Writing


What Tom Saw


Tom Swims the River


The Pirates' Egg Market


Tom Looking for Joe's Knife


The Thunder Storm


Terrible Slaughter


The Mourner


Amy Lawrence


Tom tries to Remember


The Hero


A Flirtation


Becky Retaliates


Counter-irritation


Aunt Polly


The Discovery


Caught in the Act


Tom Astonishes the School


Tom Declaims


Examination Evening


On Exhibition


Prize Authors


The Master's Dilemma


The School House


The Cadet


Happy for Two Days


Enjoying the Vacation


The Stolen Melons


The Judge


Visiting the Prisoner


Tom Swears


The Court Room


The Detective


Tom Dreams


The Treasure


The Private Conference


A King; Poor Fellow!


The Ha'nted House


The Greatest and Best


Hidden Treasures Unearthed


The Boy's Salvation


The Next Day's Conference


Treasures


Uncle Jake


Buck at Home


The Haunted Room


"Run for Your Life"


McDougal's Cave


Inside the Cave


Huck on Duty


A Rousing Act


The Welshman


Result of a Sneeze


Cornered


Alarming Discoveries


Tom and Becky stir up the Town


Huck Questions the Widow


Wonders of the Cave


Attacked by Natives


The Wedding Cake


A New Terror


Daylight


"Turn Out" to Receive Tom and Becky


The Escape from the Cave


Fate of the Ragged Man


The Treasures Found


Caught at Last


Having a Good Time


A Business Trip


"Got it at Last!"


Widow Douglas


Tom Backs his Statement


Comfortable Once More


High up in Society


Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture.


The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.


Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.


"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"


The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:


"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll—"


She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.


"I never did see the beat of that boy!"


She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:


There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.


"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?"


"Nothing."


"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that truck?"


"I don't know, aunt."


"Well, I know. It's jam—that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."


The switch hovered in the air—the peril was desperate—


"My! Look behind you, aunt!"


The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and disappeared over it.


His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle laugh.


"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening,[*] and I'll just be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else, and I've got to do some of my duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."


[*] Southwestern for "afternoon"


Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's wood and split the kindlings before supper—at least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already through with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, and had no adventurous, trouble-some ways.


While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and very deep—for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said she:


"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"


"Powerful warm, warn't it?"


"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"


A bit of a scare shot through Tom—a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:


"No'm—well, not very much."


The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:


"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:


"Some of us pumped on our heads—mine's damp yet. See?"


Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration:


"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"


The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.


"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is—better'n you look. This time."


She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.


"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread, but it's black."


"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!"


But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:


In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them—one needle carried white thread and the other black. He said:


"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to gee-miny she'd stick to one or t'other—I can't keep the run of 'em. But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!"


He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though—and loathed him.


Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time—just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music—the reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet—no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.


The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom checked his whistle. A stranger was before him—a boy a shade larger than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well dressed, too—well dressed on a week-day. This was simply astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes on—and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved—but only sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the time. Finally Tom said:


"I can lick you!"


"No you can't, either."


"Yes I can."


"No you can't."


"Can!"


"Can't!"


An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said:


"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe."


"Well I 'low I'll make it my business."


"If you say much, I will."


"Much—much—much. There now."


"Oh, you think you're mighty smart, don't you? I could lick you with one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to."


"Well why don't you do it? You say you can do it."


"Well I will, if you fool with me."


"Oh yes—I've seen whole families in the same fix."


"Smarty! You think you're some, now, don't you? Oh, what a hat!"


"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it off—and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs."


"You're another."


"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up."


"Say—if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a rock off'n your head."


"Oh, of course you will."


"Well I will."


"Well why don't you do it then? What do you keep saying you will for? Why don't you do it? It's because you're afraid."


"I ain't."


Another pause, and more eying and sidling around each other. Presently they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said:


"Get away from here!"


"Go away yourself!"


"I won't either."


So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said:


"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too."


"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger than he is—and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too." [Both brothers were imaginary.]


"That's a lie."


Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said:


"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep."


The new boy stepped over promptly, and said:


"Don't you crowd me now; you better look out."


"By jingo! 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 nose, 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 "lay" 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 labor became adamantine in its firmness.


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 sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed 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, Mars 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' Mars Tom gwine 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 a minute. She won't ever know."


"Oh, I dasn't, Mars 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 marvel. 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 Mars Tom I's powerful 'fraid ole missis—"


"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe."


Jim was only human—this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, 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 half 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! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.


"Ship up to back! Ting-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, mean-time, describing stately circles—for it was representing a forty-foot wheel.


"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!" The left hand began to describe circles.


"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! lively now! Come—out with your spring-line—what're you about there! Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now—let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!" (trying the gauge-cocks).


Tom went on whitewashing—paid no attention to the steamboat. 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 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 warn't noticing."


"Say—I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd druther 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, maybe it is, and maybe 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?"


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 this fence—right here on the street, you know—but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and she wouldn't. 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, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it's got to be done."


"No—is that so? Oh come, now—lemme just 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; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it—"


"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say—I'll give you the core of my apple."


"Well, here—No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard—"


"I'll give you all of it!"


Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled 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 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 besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, 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 couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, 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 a 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 writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive 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 then they would resign.


The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report.


Tom presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom, breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing murmur of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her knitting—for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her lap. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had thought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing him place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He said: "Mayn't I go and play now, aunt?"


"What, a'ready? How much have you done?"


"Tom, don't lie to me—I can't bear it."


"I ain't, aunt; it is all done."


Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence white-washed, and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable. She said:


"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you're a mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding, "But it's powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'long and play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you."


She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a doughnut.


Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his black thread and getting him into trouble.


Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by the back of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the reach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of the village, where two "military" companies of boys had met for conflict, according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of these armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These two great commanders did not condescend to fight in person—that being better suited to the still smaller fry—but sat together on an eminence and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.


As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl in the garden—a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction; he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is done.


He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time; but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wending her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer. She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she disappeared.


The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction. Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side, in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally his bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for a minute—only while he could button the flower inside his jacket, next his heart—or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway.


He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions.


All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered "what had got into the child." He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said:


"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it."


"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into that sugar if I warn't watching you."


Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl—a sort of glorying over Tom which was wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model "catch it." He was so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to himself, "Now it's coming!" And the next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom cried out:


"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting me for?—Sid broke it!"


Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when she got her tongue again, she only said:


"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some other audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough."


Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart. Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take notice of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, now and then, through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would lie there cold and white and make no sign—a poor little sufferer, whose griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos of these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like to choke; and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit of one week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other.


He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the river invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he could only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would she cry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck and comfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world? This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he worked it over and over again in his mind and set it up in new and varied lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he rose up sighing and departed in the darkness.


About half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell upon his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed the fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood under that window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid him down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back, with his hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor wilted flower. And thus he would die—out in the cold world, with no shelter over his homeless head, no friendly hand to wipe the death-damps from his brow, no loving face to bend pityingly over him when the great agony came. And thus she would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?


The window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the holy calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains!


The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the fence and shot away in the gloom.


Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he had any dim idea of making any "references to allusions," he thought better of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom's eye.


Tom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made mental note of the omission.


The sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful village like a benediction. Breakfast over, Aunt Polly had family worship: it began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid courses of Scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of originality; and from the summit of this she delivered a grim chapter of the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai.


Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to "get his verses." Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter. At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary took his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through the fog:


"Blessed are the—a—a—"


"Yes—poor; blessed are the poor—a—a—"


"In spirit—"


"In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they—they—"


"Theirs—"


"For theirs. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they—they—"


"For they—a—"


"For they S, H—Oh, I don't know what it is!"


"Shall!"


"Oh, shall! for they shall—for they shall—a—a—shall mourn—a—a—blessed are they that shall—they that—a—they that shall mourn, for they shall—a—shall what? Why don't you tell me, Mary?—what do you want to be so mean for?"


"Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom, you'll manage it—and if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice. There, now, that's a good boy."


"All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is."


"Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it's nice, it is nice."


"You bet you that's so, Mary. All right, I'll tackle it again."


And he did "tackle it again"—and under the double pressure of curiosity and prospective gain he did it with such spirit that he accomplished a shining success. Mary gave him a brand-new "Barlow" knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything, but it was a "sure-enough" Barlow, and there was inconceivable grandeur in that—though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its injury is an imposing mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom contrived to scarify the cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin on the bureau, when he was called off to dress for Sunday-school.


Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap, and he went outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there; then he dipped the soap in the water and laid it down; turned up his sleeves; poured out the water on the ground, gently, and then entered the kitchen and began to wipe his face diligently on the towel behind the door. But Mary removed the towel and said:


"Now ain't you ashamed, Tom. You mustn't be so bad. Water won't hurt you."


Tom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was refilled, and this time he stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big breath and began. When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes shut and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony of suds and water was dripping from his face. But when he emerged from the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in front and backward around his neck. Mary took him in hand, and when she was done with him he was a man and a brother, without distinction of color, and his saturated hair was neatly brushed, and its short curls wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general effect. [He privately smoothed out the curls, with labor and difficulty, and plastered his hair close down to his head; for he held curls to be effeminate, and his own filled his life with bitterness.] Then Mary got out a suit of his clothing that had been used only on Sundays during two years—they were simply called his "other clothes"—and so by that we know the size of his wardrobe. The girl "put him to rights" after he had dressed himself; she buttoned his neat roundabout up to his chin, turned his vast shirt collar down over his shoulders, brushed him off and crowned him with his speckled straw hat. He now looked exceedingly improved and uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable as he looked; for there was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanliness that galled him. He hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted; she coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was the custom, and brought them out. He lost his temper and said he was always being made to do everything he didn't want to do. But Mary said, persuasively:


"Please, Tom—that's a good boy."


So he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was soon ready, and the three children set out for Sunday-school—a place that Tom hated with his whole heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it.


Sabbath-school hours were from nine to half-past ten; and then church service. Two of the children always remained for the sermon voluntarily, and the other always remained too—for stronger reasons. The church's high-backed, uncushioned pews would seat about three hundred persons; the edifice was but a small, plain affair, with a sort of pine board tree-box on top of it for a steeple. At the door Tom dropped back a step and accosted a Sunday-dressed comrade:


"Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?"


"What'll you take for her?"


"What'll you give?"


"Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook."


Tom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and the property changed hands. Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and some small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones. He waylaid other boys as they came, and went on buying tickets of various colors ten or fifteen minutes longer. He entered the church, now, with a swarm of clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started a quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave, elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole class were of a pattern—restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they came to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses perfectly, but had to be prompted all along. However, they worried through, and each got his reward—in small blue tickets, each with a passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of the recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Doré Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way—it was the patient work of two years—and a boy of German parentage had won four or five. He once recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forth—a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out and "spread himself." Only the older pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar's heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks. It is possible that Tom's mental stomach had never really hungered for one of those prizes, but unquestionably his entire being had for many a day longed for the glory and the eclat that came with it.


In due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert—though why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of music is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a slim creature of thirty-five, with a sandy goatee and short sandy hair; he wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper edge almost reached his ears and whose sharp points curved forward abreast the corners of his mouth—a fence that compelled a straight lookout ahead, and a turning of the whole body when a side view was required; his chin was propped on a spreading cravat which was as broad and as long as a bank-note, and had fringed ends; his boot toes were turned sharply up, in the fashion of the day, like sleigh-runners—an effect patiently and laboriously produced by the young men by sitting with their toes pressed against a wall for hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest of mien, and very sincere and honest at heart; and he held sacred things and places in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly matters, that unconsciously to himself his Sunday-school voice had acquired a peculiar intonation which was wholly absent on week-days. He began after this fashion:


"Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There—that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one little girl who is looking out of the window—I am afraid she thinks I am out there somewhere—perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] I want to tell you how good it makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces assembled in a place like this, learning to do right and be good." And so forth and so on. It is not necessary to set down the rest of the oration. It was of a pattern which does not vary, and so it is familiar to us all.


The latter third of the speech was marred by the resumption of fights and other recreations among certain of the bad boys, and by fidgetings and whisperings that extended far and wide, washing even to the bases of isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid and Mary. But now every sound ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of Mr. Walters' voice, and the conclusion of the speech was received with a burst of silent gratitude.


A good part of the whispering had been occasioned by an event which was more or less rare—the entrance of visitors: lawyer Thatcher, accompanied by a very feeble and aged man; a fine, portly, middle-aged gentleman with iron-gray hair; and a dignified lady who was doubtless the latter's wife. The lady was leading a child. Tom had been restless and full of chafings and repinings; conscience-smitten, too—he could not meet Amy Lawrence's eye, he could not brook her loving gaze. But when he saw this small newcomer his soul was all ablaze with bliss in a moment. The next moment he was "showing off" with all his might—cuffing boys, pulling hair, making faces—in a word, using every art that seemed likely to fascinate a girl and win her applause. His exaltation had but one alloy—the memory of his humiliation in this angel's garden—and that record in sand was fast washing out, under the waves of happiness that were sweeping over it now.


The visitors were given the highest seat of honor, and as soon as Mr. Walters' speech was finished, he introduced them to the school. The middle-aged man turned out to be a prodigious personage—no less a one than the county judge—altogether the most august creation these children had ever looked upon—and they wondered what kind of material he was made of—and they half wanted to hear him roar, and were half afraid he might, too. He was from Constantinople, twelve miles away—so he had travelled, and seen the world—these very eyes had looked upon the county court-house—which was said to have a tin roof. The awe which these reflections inspired was attested by the impressive silence and the ranks of staring eyes. This was the great Judge Thatcher, brother of their own lawyer. Jeff Thatcher immediately went forward, to be familiar with the great man and be envied by the school. It would have been music to his soul to hear the whisperings:


"Look at him, Jim! He's a going up there. Say—look! he's a going to shake hands with him—he is shaking hands with him! By jings, don't you wish you was Jeff?"


Mr. Walters fell to "showing off," with all sorts of official bustlings and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments, discharging directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a target. The librarian "showed off"—running hither and thither with his arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in. The young lady teachers "showed off"—bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers "showed off" with small scoldings and other little displays of authority and fine attention to discipline—and most of the teachers, of both sexes, found business up at the library, by the pulpit; and it was business that frequently had to be done over again two or three times (with much seeming vexation). The little girls "showed off" in various ways, and the little boys "showed off" with such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads and the murmur of scufflings. And above it all the great man sat and beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the house, and warmed himself in the sun of his own grandeur—for he was "showing off," too.


There was only one thing wanting to make Mr. Walters' ecstasy complete, and that was a chance to deliver a Bible-prize and exhibit a prodigy. Several pupils had a few yellow tickets, but none had enough—he had been around among the star pupils inquiring. He would have given worlds, now, to have that German lad back again with a sound mind.


And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But there was no getting around it—here were the certified checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy—but those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.


The prize was delivered to Tom with as much effusion as the superintendent could pump up under the circumstances; but it lacked somewhat of the true gush, for the poor fellow's instinct taught him that there was a mystery here that could not well bear the light, perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises—a dozen would strain his capacity, without a doubt.


Amy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she tried to make Tom see it in her face—but he wouldn't look. She wondered; then she was just a grain troubled; next a dim suspicion came and went—came again; she watched; a furtive glance told her worlds—and then her heart broke, and she was jealous, and angry, and the tears came and she hated everybody. Tom most of all (she thought).


Tom was introduced to the Judge; but his tongue was tied, his breath would hardly come, his heart quaked—partly because of the awful greatness of the man, but mainly because he was her parent. He would have liked to fall down and worship him, if it were in the dark. The Judge put his hand on Tom's head and called him a fine little man, and asked him what his name was. The boy stammered, gasped, and got it out:


"Oh, no, not Tom—it is—"


"Thomas."


"Ah, that's it. I thought there was more to it, maybe. That's very well. But you've another one I daresay, and you'll tell it to me, won't you?"


"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas," said Walters, "and say sir. You mustn't forget your manners."


"Thomas Sawyer—sir."


"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow. Two thousand verses is a great many—very, very great many. And you never can be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what makes great men and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man yourself, some day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say, It's all owing to the precious Sunday-school privileges of my boyhood—it's all owing to my dear teachers that taught me to learn—it's all owing to the good superintendent, who encouraged me, and watched over me, and gave me a beautiful Bible—a splendid elegant Bible—to keep and have it all for my own, always—it's all owing to right bringing up! That is what you will say, Thomas—and you wouldn't take any money for those two thousand verses—no indeed you wouldn't. And now you wouldn't mind telling me and this lady some of the things you've learned—no, I know you wouldn't—for we are proud of little boys that learn. Now, no doubt you know the names of all the twelve disciples. Won't you tell us the names of the first two that were appointed?"


Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed, now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart sank within him. He said to himself, it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest question—why did the Judge ask him? Yet he felt obliged to speak up and say:


"Answer the gentleman, Thomas—don't be afraid."


"Now I know you'll tell me," said the lady. "The names of the first two disciples were—"


"David and Goliah!"


Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.