Title EKS Tom Sawyer Paper 3-Whitewashing the fence.pdf ✅

Whitewashing the Fence Copyright [email protected] Academy of Comprehension & Composition P 1 1 Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, 2 and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was 3 young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in 4 every step. The locust-trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms 5 filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with 6 vegetation and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, 7 reposeful, and inviting. 8 Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled 9 brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy 10 settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to 11 him seemed hollow and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush 12 and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; 13 compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent 14 of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. 15 He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows 16 multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of 17 delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to 18 work—the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth 19 and examined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of 20 work, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure 21 freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea 22 of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst 23 upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration. 24 He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight 25 presently—the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. 26 Ben’s gait was the hop-skip-and-jump—proof enough that his heart was light 27 and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple. 28 Tom went on whitewashing. Ben stared a moment and then said: ‘Hi-yi! You’re 29 up a stump, ain’t you!’ 30 No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave 31 his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged 32 up alongside of him. Tom’s mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his 33 work. Ben said: 34 ‘Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?’ 35 Tom wheeled suddenly and said: 36 ‘Why, it’s you, Ben! I warn’t noticing.’
Whitewashing the Fence Copyright [email protected] Academy of Comprehension & Composition P 2 37 ‘Say—I’m going in a-swimming, I am. Don’t you wish you could? But of 38 course you’d druther work—wouldn’t you? Course you would!’ 39 Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: 40 ‘What do you call work?’ 41 ‘Why, ain’t that work?’ 42 Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: 43 ‘Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.’ 44 ‘Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?’ 45 The brush continued to move. 46 ‘Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to 47 whitewash a fence every day?’ 48 That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his 49 brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch 50 here and there—criticised the effect again—Ben watching every move and 51 getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: 52 ‘Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.’ 53 Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind: 54 ‘No—no—I reckon it wouldn’t hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly’s awful 55 particular about this fence—right here on the street, you know—but if it was the 56 back fence I wouldn’t mind and she wouldn’t. Yes, she’s awful particular about 57 this fence; it’s got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain’t one boy in a 58 thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it’s got to be done.’ 59 ‘No—is that so? Oh come, now—lemme just try. Only just a little—I’d let you, 60 if you was me, Tom.’ 61 ‘Ben, I’d like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly—well, Jim wanted to do it, but 62 she wouldn’t let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn’t let Sid. Now don’t 63 you see how I’m fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to 64 happen to it—’ 65 ‘Oh, shucks, I’ll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say—I’ll give you the core 66 of my apple.’
Whitewashing the Fence Copyright [email protected] Academy of Comprehension & Composition P 3 67 ‘Well, here—No, Ben, now don’t. I’m afeard—’ 68 ‘I’ll give you all of it!’ 69 Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And 70 while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired 71 artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, 72 and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; 73 boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to 74 whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to 75 Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller 76 bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with—and so on, and so on, 77 hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor 78 poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had 79 besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a 80 piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn’t 81 unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, 82 a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass 83 doorknob, a dog-collar—but no dog—the handle of a knife, four pieces of 84 orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash. 85 He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while—plenty of company—and the 86 fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn’t run out of whitewash he 87 would have bankrupted every boy in the village. 88 Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had 89 discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in 90 order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the 91 thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the 92 writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of 93 whatever a body is obliged to do and that Play consists of whatever a body is 94 not obliged to do. 95 And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or 96 performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont 97 Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive 98 four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the 99 summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were 100 offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would 101 resign. 102 The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place in his 103 worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report.