Fun, engaging novel about a very intelligent--and very naughty--boy. If we're lucky, we will all have a little bit of Tom Sawyer in us: we all misbehave, we all show off, we all counted the interminable minutes until recess, and we all have our little schemes and connivances.
Nobody remembers the boys who behave themselves all the time.
There's some subtlety to Twain's writing too at times: we see a good example in Chapter 6, when Tom is late to school.[1] You have to read with fairly close attention to note that Tom sees an empty seat, the only empty seat, next to Becky Thatcher on the girls' side of the classroom. He was thinking several steps ahead, and this was exactly why he spontaneously admits to his teacher, loudly, that his tardiness was due to talking to the town's black sheep, Huck Finn. He did it because he knew the teacher would put him on the girls' side of the schoolroom, right next to Becky!
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One can't help imagining if they had Ritalin in the 1870s they would have used it to subdue Tom Sawyer too. The world would be the lesser for it.
Finally a couple of brief comments on Samuel Clemens' biography, as this edition of the book offers a thorough chronology of his life. It's interesting to see Clemens' frustrations, largely financial, pile up on him in late middle age. But even after he got out from under his creditors, he couldn't help himself: he consistently reached beyond his financial grasp, repeatedly getting involved in kooky, failed speculative ventures. It feels as if something was eating at him, that he was chasing something unreachable. And towards the end of his life it is rather unsettling to see Clemens, even then recognized as one of America's great writers, express dissatisfaction with both his life and his body of work.
Footnote:
[1] It actually feels like about twenty things happen in this chapter, including Tom feigning illness, getting his loose tooth yanked out (thanks to silk thread, a bedpost and a hot coal), learning a new way to expectorate and impressing all the other boys, talking at length with Huck Finn about various topics including the uses of dead cats, then trading his newly removed tooth with Huck Finn for a live tick [!], and then working his master plan to sit next to Becky and flirt with her. All within just a few pages. Yet another reason why this book is a fun read.
[Readers, feel free to skip the rest of this post, it's just my notes and reactions to the various plot points of the novel.]
Notes:
Author's Preface:
3 "The odd superstitions touched upon [in this book] were all prevalent among children and slaves in the west at the period of the story--that is to say 30 or 40 years ago." [This is what you have to do in order to avoid "retrospective bigoteering" from readers who might try to cancel one of your other books because it contains the n-word].
3 "...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."
Chapter 1: Y-o-u-u Tom : Aunt Polly Decides Upon Her Duty : Tom Practices Music : The Challenge : A Private Entrance
9ff An older lady repeatedly calls out "Tom" and gets no answer; finally she hears a noise behind her and seizes a small boy with jam on his face; she says to him, "Hand me that switch," and he says "My! Look behind you, aunt!" and then scampers away. The woman (Aunt Polly) worries that she's spoiling him, and she feels so guilty disciplining him. Later at dinnertime Aunt Polly reaches at Tom's shirt to make sure that he hadn't unstitched the collar that she had sewed tight [the reader later finds out that this is how she stops him from taking is shirt off: if the thread weren't there it would give away that he went swimming and thus played hooky from school]. Thanks to some comments from his half-brother Sid, we find that Tom restitched his shirt, but used the wrong color thread. Tom once again runs off, saying, "Siddy, I'll lick you for that."
12ff Tom is walking through his village practicing his whistling. He finds another boy who's well dressed, even wearing shoes on a Friday! They have a kind of posturing even there, threatening each other; finally they start wrestling and fighting. Tom wins the fight and the boy runs off, but not before turning around and throwing a rock at Tom which hits him square in the back. Tom then sneaks home through his bedroom window, finding his aunt waiting for him; she's so appalled by the state his clothes are in that she makes him stay home and work all Saturday instead of having the day to play.
Chapter 2: Strong Temptations : Strategic Movements : The Innocents Beguiled
16ff [This is the famous whitewashing scene, it's better than I imagined!] Tom uses a combination of suggestion and reverse psychology to convince the other boys in town to do his own whitewashing chore for him. "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." One of the boys begs to do the job: "Lemme just try... I'd let you, if it was me, Tom." The boys even pay him for the privilege, including Johnny Miller, who "bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with." [I mean, what young boy doesn't want a dead rat to swing around on a string?]
Chapter 3: Tom as a General : Triumph and Reward : Dismal Felicity : Commission and Omission
22ff Aunt Polly can't believe Tom's work painting the fence. Also note this quote when Tom sees Sid and throws dirt at him for ratting out Tom's thread/shirt restitching caper: "Clods were handy and the air was full of them in a twinkling." [Twain has a really good turn of phrase from time to time.] After generaling a fight between boys, Tom falls in love with a new girl in town who he happens to see, he "shows off" in front of her, and his former love interest, Amy Lawrence, "vanished out of his heart and left not even a memory of herself behind. [This chapter is quite an amusing chivalric romance parody.] When he gets home he goes to bed without saying his prayers, and "Sid made a mental note of the omission."
Chapter 4: Mental Acrobatics : Attending Sunday-School : The Superintendent : "Showing Off": Tom Lionized
28ff Tom works on his scripture lesson for the week, then his cousin Mary helps him get dressed and makes sure that his face is properly washed. Note the comment here about Tom's "other clothes"--a term referring to his Sunday church clothing--"and so by that we know the size of his wardrobe." "He hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted." On the way to church Tom negotiates the purchase of a bunch of tickets of various colors from the other boys.
33ff During Sunday school Tom's a new girl student is introduced to the class, the girl he was showing off for in Chapter 3. Tom is overcome with bliss and starts "showing off" again: pulling hair, making faces, "using every art that seemed likely to fascinate a girl and win her applause." [This stuff still works in adulthood, readers should try it!] She is the daughter of Judge Thatcher, a very important person, from a town a whole twelve miles away, which to the boys meant "he had traveled, and seen the world." Suddenly all the adults in the Sunday School begin "showing off" to Judge Thatcher!
34ff Mr. Walters, the Sunday school teacher, begins showing off himself, wanting to deliver a Bible prize to one of his students [the students over time had earned tickets by memorizing Bible verses]. Out of the blue Tom walks forward with enough tickets to win the Bible. "Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect." [Holy cow, nice pun right there on rural Protestantism.]
35 "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. 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." The judge gives him a little speech complimenting him on learning two thousand Bible verses, which of course Tom never learned, and then the judge asks Tom, "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 replies "DAVID and GOLIATH!"
Chapter 5: A Useful Minister : In Church : The Climax
37ff Church service begins, giving the author a chance to introduce many of the town's characters, including the widow Douglas, "fair, smart and forty." Tom sits through the interminable service, catching a fly, then playing with a beetle he kept in a box in his pocket; it escapes and a nearby poodle tries to eat it, then the poodle accidentally sits on it, gets pinched by it, yelps, and then flings itself across the church into its master's lap, who then flings the dog out the window. Everyone is laughing under their breath, even Tom, despite losing his beetle.
Chapter 6: Self-Examination : Dentistry : The Midnight Charm : Witches and Devils : Cautious Approaches
42ff Tom tries to come up with some illness to get him out of going to school on Monday, including a showing his aunt his loose tooth; she actually yanks it out of his head by tying a silk thread to his tooth and the bedpost, and then putting a burning coal from the fire almost into his face. "The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now." Now Tom can spit in a totally new way, and he's yet again the envy of every boy he meets that day.
45 The reader now meets Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard, hated by all the mothers of town but admired by all the children. Tom and Huck have an extended debate on how to get rid of warts. Then he trades his tooth for a tick that Huck found. [!]
49 Tom arrives late to school, and, seeing the new girl, the daughter of the Judge sitting next to an empty chair--the only empty chair on the girls' side of the schoolroom--he decides to confess the real reason why he was late: he stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn. He gets a lashing with a switch, and then the teacher makes him sit on the girls' side of the class. He draws pictures of the new girl and flirts with her, and the reader finally learns her name: Becky Thatcher. The teacher drags him--by his ear--back to his regular seat.
Chapter 7: The Treaty Entered Into : Early Lessons : A Mistake Made
53ff Tom and his friend Joe play with the tick [that Tom traded his tooth for] on their desk until the teacher raps them both on their shoulders. At lunchtime Tom meets with Becky Thatcher and they get "engaged"; he kisses her but then slips up, accidentally mentioning Amy Lawrence's name and making Becky cry.
Chapter 8: Tom Decides on his Course : Old Scenes Re-enacted
59ff Tom sits in the forest, musing mournfully about the point of it all, dreaming about running away to be an Indian, or a pirate, to show everybody--including Becky Thatcher. He then hears a toy trumpet call, and then digs a sword and bow and arrow out of a hiding place to play Robin Hood with his friend Joe; they follow the story faithfully.
Chapter 9: A Solemn Situation : Grave Subjects Introduced : Injun Joe Explains
70ff The plot thickens quite a bit here as Tom slips out of his house in the night to meet up with Huck Finn to go to the local graveyard; while they're there, Injun Joe and the town drunkard, Muff Potter, arrive with the town doctor, Dr. Robinson, to dig up a body for him to dissect. They have an argument over money and the three men start fighting; Dr Robinson knocks out Muff Potter, but then Injun Joe stabs and kills Dr. Robinson, and when Muff Potter comes to, he convinces him that Muff was the one who killed the doctor. The boys slip away from the scene after seeing all this happen.
Chapter 10: A Solemn Oath : Terror Brings Repentance : Mental Punishment
70ff The boys run away terrified and breathless. They think through what they should do, deciding to swear an oath to keep silent. Tom writes out a blood oath on a piece of shingle saying "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will keep mum about this and they wish they may drop down dead in their tracks if they ever tell and rot." "Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing, and the sublimity of his language." But someone had been watching them stealthily and crept away. Tom returns home to a weeping lecture from Aunt Polly, and then the next day Tom is flogged at school for playing hooky.
Chapter 11: Muff Potter Comes Himself : Tom's Conscience at Work
76ff News instantly spreads all over town of the murder, the children get the afternoon off from school. Injun Joe implicates Muff Potter for the murder; Tom and Huck remain silent as they agreed to. Tom's conscience bothers him, he brings gifts to Muff Potter in jail, and Sid notices Tom behaving unlike his normal self.
Chapter 12: Tom Shows His Generosity : Aunt Polly Weakens
80ff Tom notices that Becky hasn't been at school, he misses her and gets mournful and depressed. The reader gets a long discussion of Aunt Polly's affection for quack remedies; she tries a few on Tom, settling ultimately on something called "Pain-Killer." Tom uses it on the cat, and it goes crazy and destroys the house. Becky returns to school but ignores Tom's showing off.
Chapter 13: The Young Pirates : Going to the Rendezvous : Camp-Fire Talk
86ff Tom and Joe meet up, both feeling gloomy and low: Tom because he misses Becky and Joe because his mother had just whipped in for drinking cream. They decide to run away. Joe's idea was to be a hermit and live on crusts of bread, but after talking to Tom about being a pirate instead, he "conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a life of crime, and so he consented to be a pirate." Huck joins them, they steal some food and take a raft to an island on the Mississippi River, set up a campfire and have a glorious time talking about what it would be like to be a pirate. Huck lights up a corncob pipe and Tom and Joe "envied him this majestic vice, and secretly resolved to acquire it shortly." Tom and Joe then feel guilty for running away and stealing food.
Chapter 14: Camp-Life : A Sensation : Tom Steals Away from Camp
93ff Tom wakes and observes all kinds of insects and animals on the island, he rouses the others and they bathe in the river, noting that their raft drifted away in the night. They're happy about it: it was "like burning the bridge between them and civilization." They catch fish and cook them up, swim in the river, but soon they all feel homesick.
95ff They hear a cannon go off and they realize the town is searching for somebody who's drowned. Huck says "I'd give heaps to know who it is." But Tom quickly realizes that the townsfolk are looking for them! They love the idea of the notoriety at first but then start to feel bad, but when Joe ventures on a "feeler" of going back home, he is derided by Huck and Tom. Later in the night, Tom steals away, leaving a message in Huck's hat.
Chapter 15: Tom Reconnoiters : Learns the Situation : Reports at Camp
99ff Tom stows away on a ferry in the middle of the night, heading back to town; he steals into his house and sees Aunt Polly, his cousin Mary and Joe's mother weeping and grieving the boys, who they assume have drowned. Then Tom steals a skiff from the ferry and rows back to the island to tell the other two boys what he learned. They all feel like heroes and continue to explore their island.
Chapter 16: A Day's Amusements : Tom Reveals a Secret : The Pirates Take a Lesson : A Night Surprise : An Indian War
104ff The boys continue to play on the island, but Joe becomes very homesick, and Huck wants to go back too. Tom won't give into his pride, and as they begin to leave, he runs after them to tell them a secret, which persuades them to return [the reader doesn't know what the secret is yet]. Then Tom and Joe learn how to smoke, but become so ill by the tobacco that they have to steal off to secretly vomit since they didn't want to admit to Huck that it made them sick; when Huck offers them tobacco the next morning they both claim they aren't feeling well--they both had eaten something for dinner that disagreed with them.
109ff That evening a huge storm breaks over them, with lightning, thunder and tremendous rain; they all hide under their tent but the wind blows the tent clean away; then they race to the shelter of a huge oak tree; after the storm ends they return to their campsite to find that the tree they were camping under had been destroyed by lightning just after they ran away. The next day, to cure their homesickness, they wake up and play as Indians attacking an English settlement.
Chapter 17: Memories of the Lost Heroes : The Point in Tom's Secret
113ff Now the reader sees Joe and Tom's families mourning and grieving; Becky Thatcher is also crying, missing Tom. Everyone thinks they have drowned. The boys at school all compare stories celebrating Tom. A service is held at the church, where "the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways and the rare promise of the lost lads," celebrating them for various "noble and beautiful" events of their lives. But then, suddenly, the three boys actually march up the aisle in the church--they had been listening to their own funeral sermon! Aunt Polly, Mary and the Joe's mother throw themselves on Tom and Joe, smothering them with kisses, until Tom says, "Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck." This was the proudest moment of Tom's life, as all the young boys looked at him with envy. [Heck, who doesn't want to fake his own death??]
Chapter 18: Tom's Feelings Investigated : Wonderful : Dream Becky Thatcher Overshadowed : Tom Becomes Jealous : Black Revenge
117ff We learn Tom's great secret--the secret he told Joe and Huck in Chapter 16 to persuade them not to return to town just yet: it was so the boys return home and attend their own funerals. Later, Tom tells Aunt Polly and the family about a dream he had, and he recites precisely what happened when he spied on his own family the night he slipped away from the island. Aunt Polly literally thinks Tom is prophesying, but Sid sees through it.
120ff Tom returns to school a hero, but he plays it cool with Becky Thatcher, ignoring her--as she "shows off" to him. Tom has set his eyes on Amy Lawrence instead. Becky then sits with another boy, Alfred Temple, and it makes Tom insanely jealous. [This is a cute scene here where Tom and Becky both use other people to try to create jealousy each other: just as in real life, it requires more patience with that "other person" than most of us have! Becky loses her temper with Alfred and Tom can barely stand Amy's nattering, and the whole time both of them are turning an eye to each other to see if their attempts at inducing jealousy are working. This scene is well done.]
Chapter 19: Tom Tells the Truth
125ff Aunt Polly finds out that Tom was eavesdropping on them and gets very angry at the trick he played on her. "You could never think to pity us and save us from sorrow." But yet Aunt Polly can't help it though: she's deeply affectionate towards Tom. "I could forgive the boy if he'd committed a million sins!"
Chapter 20: Becky in a Dilemma : Tom's Nobility Asserts Itself
128 Tom, cheered up by Aunt Polly's affection for him, sees Becky Thatcher on the way to school; he runs up to her and says, "I acted mighty mean to-day, Becky, and I'm so sorry." She looks at him scornfully and says, "I'll never speak to you again." Tom is so stunned that he doesn't even have a chance to make a comeback, and he mopes to the schoolyard. The author foreshadows here that Becky "did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself."
128ff A digression here about their teacher, Mr. Dobbins, and his dream of being a doctor: during class he would always read a book that he kept locked in his desk, leaving all the kids curious about what it was.Today, however, Becky sees that the key is in the lock, and so she opens the desk and takes out the book and opens it: it was an anatomy book, and the page she turn to had a picture of a human figure, stark naked. Tom suddenly walks into the classroom and catches a glimpse of the picture, and Becky snatches at the book to close it and tears the page right down the middle. She begins yelling at him and then runs out of the room crying.
129 "What a curious kind of fool a girl is. Never been licked in school! Shucks, what's a licking! That's just like a girl--they're so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted." [One can see why our pedagogical elites didn't want us to read this book in school...]
131ff Tom covers for Becky and takes the blame for tearing the page out of Mr. Dobbins' book. "I done it!" "...and when he stepped forward to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude, the adoration that shone upon him out of poor Becky's eyes seemed pay enough for a hundred floggings."
Chapter 21: Youthful Eloquence : Compositions by the Young Ladies : A Lengthy Vision : The Boys Vengeance Satisfied
133ff Comments here on the vindictiveness of Mr. Dobbins and his constant use of the rod on the students. The children, angry at the lashings, plot revenge against him. Scenes here from the school's year-end exercises, as the students perform readings and recitations for their parents. The author shares a few examples of these readings in all of their pious, melodramic awfulness. [According to the author's footnote these were actual readings used in schools at the time.]
138 And then the revenge prank the children play on Mr. Dobbins: one of the children, a painter's son, had contrived to paint the teacher's head with gold paint while he was drunk, and the children rigged up a box with a cat above his head, and, lowering it, the cat grabbed the teacher's hairpiece in front of the entire audience, leaving his bald pate blazing in the light.
Chapter 22: Tom's Confidence Betrayed : Expects Signal Punishment
139ff Summer vacation begins: Tom joins The Cadets of Temperance, a group that avoids swearing and tobacco use but he can barely stand it; a minstrel show comes to town; a circus comes to town; and then the measles comes to town, leaving Tom ill for weeks.
Chapter 23: Old Muff's Friends : Muff Potter in Court : Muff Potter Saved
142ff The murder trial of Muff Potter: Tom and Huck swear all over again to not let slip anything about what they saw; they are terrified that Injun Joe will kill them. They visit Muff in prison, bringing him tobacco and matches; they feel a mixture of both guilt and cowardice. Muff is grateful to them, and he warns them "don't you ever get drunk." It makes them even more miserable.
144ff Muff Potter's defense lawyer, strangely, doesn't cross examine any of the witnesses the prosecution brings up to testify, much to the confusion of the courtroom. Suddenly the defense attorney calls "Thomas Sawyer" to the stand. And under questioning, while Injun Joe looks contemptuously at him from the audience, the truth comes out, and Injun Joe leaps up from the audience, jumps out through a courtroom window, and disappears.
Chapter 24: Tom as the Village Hero Days of Splendor and Nights of Horror : Pursuit of Injun Joe
148ff "Tom was a glittering hero once more... As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort of conduct is to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find fault with it." Tom dreams in horror of Injun Joe, likewise "Huck was in the same state of wretchedness and terror." It turns out that Tom told the whole story to the lawyer the night before the trial's final day. There is no sign of Injun Joe, anywhere.
Chapter 25: About Kings and Diamonds : Search for the Treasure : Dead People and Ghosts
150ff Tom gets in his head to dig for buried treasure and he recruits Huck into his scheme.
[Note the dialogue here between Huck and Tom, in which Tom drops some truth bombs about how to find the right partner in life.]
"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your share?"
"Well I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every circus that comes along. I bet I'll have a gay time."
"Well ain't you going to save any of it?"
"Save it? What for?"
"Why so as to have something to live on, by and by."
"O, that ain't any use. Pap would come back to thish-yer town someday and get his claws on it if I didn't hurry up, and I tell you he'd to clean it out pretty quick. What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"
"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-nough sword, and a red neck-tie and a bull pup, and get married."
"Married!"
"That's it."
"Tom, you--why you ain't in your right mind."
"Wait--you'll see."
"Well that's the foolishest thing you could do, Tom. Look at my pap and my mother. Fight? Why they used to fight all the time. I remember, mighty well."
"That ain't anything. The girl I'm going to marry won't fight."
Chapter 26: The Haunted House : Sleepy Ghosts : A Box of Gold : Bitter Luck
157ff Tom and Huck arrange to meet at the town's haunted house to dig in and around the property. They realize it's Friday, a highly unlucky day to be working around a haunted house, so Tom teaches Huck all about Robin Hood, and they decide to play Robin Hood instead.
158ff The next day they return to dig, but meet only with failure, finding nothing. Finally they actually enter the haunted house, "admiring their own boldness," but then suddenly two men enter the house, one of them they recognize as a "Spaniard" who they have seen around town, but after hearing him speak they realize it's Injun Joe in disguise! They overhear him plotting to kill the boys and then make for Texas.
161ff Joe and his comrade bury a bag of silver at the house while the boys watch with "gloating eyes." "Here was treasure-hunting under the happiest auspices--there would not be any bothersome uncertainty as to where to dig." However, as Injun Joe and his comrade dig to bury their money they discover another box containing gold coins. Joe and his comrade have a discussion about how it looks like so much money that Joe won't need to do "that job." But Joe replies, "'Tain't robbery altogether--it's revenge!"
162ff The two of them recall seeing digging tools nearby--Huck and Tom's tools--and they consider a plan to dig a hole to bury all the gold and silver, while at the same time talking about their other two hiding places, "Number One" and "Number Two." Joe realizes, to Tom and Huck's horror, that the pick has fresh earth on it, so Joe decides to go upstairs to see if anyone else was in the house. Just as he is about to find them, he crashes through the rotting timbers back down to the ground floor. He gives up in frustration, leaving with all the money to hide it at their own hiding place. Tom and Huck leave the house wondering what Injun Joe meant by "revenge"--wondering if he was referring to Joe's plan to kill them for Tom's testimony in court.
After 27: Doubts to be Settled : The Young Detectives
165ff Tom and Huck both rue the fact that they were so close to such a large amount of money. They try to figure out what Injun Joe his comrade meant about the two hiding places, "Number One" and "Number Two," and they work up a plan to attempt to find the treasure themselves.
Chapter 28: An Attempt at No. Two : Huck Mounts Guard
168ff Tom and Huck surveil what they think is the Number Two hiding place, and then after a couple of nights of watching the location Tom goes in and literally almost steps on Joe's hand, he runs off and tells Huck to run for his life. Injun Joe had been sleeping and was likely drunk. They consider going back when he's not there.
Chapter 29: The Picnic : Huck on Injun Joe's Track : The "Revenge" Job : Aid for the Widow
171ff Tom is happily distracted from the Injun Joe business as Becky and her family return to town, Becky and her mother plan a picnic, including a group excursion into a nearby cave; Tom persuades Becky to go get ice cream at the widow Douglas's house. [This is sort of a weird plot artifice here!] Huck, keeping watch over the Number Two hiding place, sees two people walk by with a box; since there was no time to go get Tom, he follows them alone, trailing them to the widow Douglas's house. Huck overhears that the widow's late husband humiliated Injun Joe years ago, and that he planned to rob and attack the widow Douglas in revenge. Tom slips away and runs to the old Welchman's house, telling old Welchman and his two sons everything. They run up to the widow Douglas's house, well-armed. [Note that Twain/Clemens spells this with a "c," modern spelling would render it "Welshman."]
Chapter 30: The Welchman Reports : Huck Under Fire : The Story Circulated : A New Sensation : Hope Giving Way to Despair
178 The next day Huck knocks on old Welchman's door, and he's welcomed in happily; it turns out that Welchman and his sons exchanged gunfire with the Joe and his comrade the night before, chasing them off. Huck begs them to not tell anyone that he was involved but is too afraid to say why. Finally old Welchman convinces Huck to tell him everything, and Huck tells him that it was Injun Joe who was involved in the attack on the widow Douglass.
182ff Huck realizes that Injun Joe and his comrade might get captured that day, and thus he and Tom could go seize their treasure at night without any trouble. The widow Douglas arrives at old Welchman's house to learn everything that happened, it turns out she slept through the whole thing. Word begins to spread around town about the interrupted plot on the widow.
183ff At church the next day no one knows where Becky or Tom are. The town's bells are clanging and everyone goes looking for them. The chapter ends with Huck asking the widow about a discovery made at the the tavern, which Huck and Tom thought might be of of Injun Joe's hiding places; it turns out there was no treasure found, just liquor. Huck believes that the treasure is gone forever.
Chapter 31: An Exploring Expedition : Trouble Commences : Lost in the Cave : Total Darkness : Found but not Saved
187ff The story returns to Tom and Becky: they were walking with the others during the excursion into the cave, but then they found a new, beautiful and undiscovered section of it, filled with stalactites, stalagmites and underground springs. Next they find a big underground space filled with all kinds of bats, and one of them hits Becky's candle, putting it out. And as they run to get away, they get lost underground and separated from the group.
190 [Note this interesting quote which captures the psychology of young people very well: Twain captures the young person's psychological reactance here, where Tom uses Milton Ericksonian-style reverse psychology to boost Becky's spirits]: "Tom begged her to pluck up hope again, and she said she could not. He fell to blaming and abusing himself for getting her into this miserable situation; this had a better effect. She said she would try to hope again, she would get up and follow wherever he might lead if only he would not talk like that any more."
192ff They remain lost in the cave, their last candle is dwindling down to nothing, and they realize they might be lost forever. Tom continues exploring different side passages in the cavern, using a kite line to keep his bearings. At one point, he reaches around a corner and touches a human hand holding a candle--and it is Injun Joe! Tom is paralyzed with terror, but fortunately Injun Joe runs off.
194 Becky is now weakening with hunger; Tom continues to search the cave for an escape route.
Chapter 32: Tom tells the Story of their Escape : Tom's Enemy in Safe Quarters
195ff It's now Tuesday, three days later, and the children are still missing; the majority of the searchers had given up the search. Becky's mother is delirious with grief. But then late that night an alarm spread through the town: the children are found! "The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the greatest night the little town had ever seen." Tom regales everyone with an "adorned" telling of their escape. Tom and Becky spend some days ill, recovering. Tom and Huck meet up several times to discuss something once Tom recovers, and then Tom learns that Judge Thatcher had the cave sealed up with an iron door. Hearing this Tom turns completely pale and says, "Oh, Judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!"
Chapter 33: 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
198ff Everyone races to the cave, opening it up to find Injun Joe dead at the door. "Tom was touched, for he knew by his own experience how this wretch had suffered." Joe had eaten candle wax, bats, and had even scooped water out of a broken stalagmite in order to survive, but eventually he had starved to death. "Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked there in boats and wagons from the town and from all the farms and hamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and all sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as satisfactory a time at the funeral is they could have had at the hanging." [Again, how fickle the public can be! Just like how the town turned around for Muff Potter.]
200ff Huck expresses his disappointment to Tom at not finding the treasure money, but Tom tells him that the money is in the cave, and Tom knows a shortcut to it. They plan to set up a gang: "There's got to be a Gang, or else there wouldn't be any style about it." They find the treasure and carry part of it away in bags. On their way to town they are met by old Welchman and he urgently takes them to the widow Douglas's house.
Chapter 34: Springing a Secret : Mr. Jones's Surprise a Failure
207ff Huck and Tom are fitted with new suits to go to a reception at the widow Douglas's. They learn from Sid that everybody knows that Huck was the one who discovered the robbers in time before they got to the widow Douglas. Finally when the truth comes out as Mr. Jones [old Welchman] attempts to tell the story; people simply can't believe that Huck was responsible, but the widow herself heaps so much gratitude upon Huck, and even decides to give him a room under her roof and have him educated. But Tom interrupts, saying, "Huck don't need it. Huck's rich!" and he runs and gets his bags of coins and pours them out on the table. "There--what did I tell you? Half of it's Huck's and half of it's mine!" "The money was counted. The sum amounted to a little over twelve thousand dollars." [I have to translate this into today's money: I can't help myself given all the reading I've been doing lately on inflation and financial repression. It works out to about $300k if you adjust this to modern dollars using consumer price inflation, but if you adjust this using the gold price, it's some $2.3 million dollars (!!!) in today's money.]
Chapter 35: A New Order of Things : Poor Huck : New Adventures Planned
210 Tom and Huck's windfall makes a sensation in the town: the widow Douglas "puts Huck's money out at 6%," [I love that old-time expression, it reminds me of how my grandparents used to talk] while Judge Thatcher does the same with Tom's at Aunt Polly's request. Thus each boy had an income that was "simply prodigious": practically a dollar a day, when a dollar and a quarter a week would board, lodge and school a boy in those old simple days--and clothe him and wash him too.
210 "Judge Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom." When Becky tells her father that Tom took one of her whippings at school, the Judge was visibly moved.
211ff Ironically Huck suffered more as he was introduced into "society" as he was now kept clean and neat, is sleeping in a bed, eating with a knife and fork, and learning to read and go to church. "He bravely bore his miseries three weeks, and then one day turned up missing." Everyone went looking for him, but Tom found him in one of the empty hogsheads down by the slaughterhouse, in comfort, smoking his pipe and unkempt again. Tom tries but fails to convince Huck to go back home. "Everything's so awful reglar a body can't stand it. ...Lookyhere, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time." Hut gives Tom his money and asks him to just give him a 10-center sometimes.
213ff Tom finally managed to persuade Huck him by reminding that he'd have to be respectable enough to be in their "robber gang." Tom tells him "A robber is more high-toned than what a pirate is--as a general thing. In most countries they're awful high up in the nobility, dukes and such." Huck promises to go back to the widow for a month and Tom promises to ask the widow to let up on Huck a little bit.
Conclusion
215 "So endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a boy, it must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man. When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can.
"Most of the characters that perform in this book still live, and are prosperous and happy. Someday it may seem worthwhile to take up the story of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women they turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of that part of their lives at present." [For some reason, I'm not exactly sure why, this ending comes across as quite beautiful, quite emotionally charged.]
Chronology
217ff Quite a useful and intriguing chronology here of Samuel Clemens' life: it's fascinating to see all of Clemens's financial failures and speculative activities, and how we just burns through pretty sizable fortunes over and over again. Note the editor's commentary at Clemens enters late middle age: "His inclination toward pessimism and determinism is heightened." [I think this can be an easy and typical--albeit unhealthy--place to be for anyone approaching their sixties]. Also note the comments here in his mid-sixties when he wanted to focus on "serious" writing, as if he was judging his body of work--mostly humor writing--and finding it wanting somehow. Finally, see how even after getting out from under his creditors in the late 1890s, Clemens goes right back into grandiose speculative ventures all over again. He couldn't help himself.
To Read:
Mark Twain: Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog
Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad
Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain: 1601: Conversation, As It Was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors (published anonymously in 1880, acknowledged by Twain in 1906.)
Mark Twain: The Mysterious Stranger