The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Chapter 21-22-23

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Chapter twenty one.
Eloquence and the Master's Gilded Dome vacation was approaching. The
schoolmaster all was severe, grew severer and more exacting than ever,
for he wanted the school to make a good showing
on examination day. His rod and his ferrell were seldom

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idle now, at least among the smaller pupils. Only the
biggest boys and young ladies of eighteen and twenty escaped lashing.
Mister Dobbin's lashings were very vigorous ones, too, for although
he carried under his wig a perfectly bald and shiny head,
he had only reached middle age, and there was no
sign of feebleness in his muscle. As the great day approached,

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all the tyranny that was in him came to the surface.
He seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in punishing the
least shortcomings. The consequence was that the smaller boys spent
their days in terror and suffering, and their nights in
plotting revenge. They threw away no opportunity to do the
master a mischief, but he kept ahead all the time.

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The retribution that followed every vengeful success was so sweeping
and majestic that the boys always retired from the field
and badly worsted. At last, they conspired together and hit
upon a plan that promised a dazzling victory. They swore in.
The sign painter's boy told him the scheme and asked
his help. He had his own reason for being delighted,

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for the master boarded in his father's family and had
given the boy ample cause to hate him. The master's
wife would go on a visit to the country in
a few days, and there would be nothing to interfere
with the plan. The master always prepared himself for great
occasions by getting pretty well fuddled, and the sign painter's
boy said that when the dominie had reached the proper

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condition on examination evening, he would manage the thing while
he napped in his chair. Then he would have him
awakened at the right time and hurried away to school
in the fullness of time. The interesting occasion arrived at
eight in the evening. The schoolhouse was brilliantly lighted and
adorned with wreaths and festoons of foliage and flowers. The

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master sat throned in his great chair upon a raised platform,
with his blackboard behind him. He was looking tolerably mellow.
Three rows of benches on each side, and six rows
in front of him were occupied by the dignitaries of
the town and by the parents of the pupils. To
his left, back of the rows of citizens was a
spacious temporary platform upon which were seated the scholars who

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were to take part in the exercises of the evening.
Rows of small boys, washed and dressed to an intolerable
state of discomfort, rows of gawky big boys, snow banks
of girls and young ladies clad in lawn and muslem
and conspicuously conscious of their bare arms, their grandmother's ancient trinkets,
their bits of pink and blue ribbon, and the flowers

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in their hair. All the rest of the house was
filled with non participating scholars. The exercises began, A very
little boy stood up and sheepishly recited, you'd scarce expect
one of my age to speak in public on the stage,
et cetera, accompanying himself with the painfully exact and spasmodic
gestures which a machine might have used, supposing the machine

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to be a trifle out of order. But he got
through safely though cruelly scared, and got a fine round
of applause when he made his manufactured bow and retired.
A little shame faced girl lisped, Mary had a little
lamb et cetera, performed a compassion inspired Curtsey, got her
meed of applause, and sat down, flushed and happy. Tom

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Sawyer stepped forward with conceited confidence, and soared into the
unquenchable and indestructible give me liberty or give me death
speech with fine fury and frantic gesticulation, and broke down
in the middle of it. A ghastly stage fright seized him.
His legs quaked under him, and he was like to choke. True,

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he had the manifest sympathy of the house, but he
had the house's silence, too, which was even worse than
its sympathy. The master frowned, and this completed the disaster.
Tom struggled awhile and then retired utterly defeated. There was
a weak attempt at applause, but it died early. The
boy stood on the burning deck, followed also the assyrian

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came down, and other declamatory gems. Then there were reading
exercises and a spelling fight. The meager Latin class recited
with honor. The prime feature of the evening was, in
order now original compositions by the young ladies. Each in
her turn stepped forward to the edge of the platform,
cleared her throat, held up her manuscript tied with dainty ribbon,

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and proceeded to read with labored attention to expression and punctuation.
The themes were the same that had been illuminated upon
similar occasions by their mothers before them, their grandmothers, and
doubtless all their ancestors in the female line clear back
to the Crusades. Friendship was one memories of other days.

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Religion in history dream Land, the advantages of culture, forms
of political government compared and contrasted melancholy, filial love, heart longings,
et cetera, et cetera. A prevalent feature in these compositions
was a nursed and petted melancholy. Another was a wasteful

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and opulent gush of fine language. Another was a tendency
to lug in by the ears, particularly prized words and phrases,
until they were worn entirely out. And a peculiarity that
conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable
sermon that wagged its crippled tale at the end of
each and every one of them. No matter what the

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subject might be, a brain racking effort was made to
square berm it into some aspect or other that the
moral and religious mind could contemplate with edification. The glaring
insincerity of these sermons was not sufficient to compass the
banishment of the fashion from the schools, and it is
not sufficient to day. It never will be sufficient while
the world stands. Perhaps there is no school in all

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our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged
to close their compositions with a sermon. And you will
find that the sermon of the most frivolous and the
least religious girl in the school is always the longest
and the most relentlessly pious. But enough of this homely
truth is unpalatable. Let us return to the examination. The

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first composition that was read was one entitled is this
then Life? Perhaps the reader can endure and extract from
it in the common walks of life with what delightful emotions?
Does the youthful mind look forward to some anticipated scene
of festivity? Imagination is busy sketching rose tinted pictures of joy.

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In fancy, the voluptuous rotary of fashion sees herself amid
the festive throng, the observed of all observers. Her graceful form,
arrayed in snowy robes, is whirling through the mazes of
the joyous dance. Her eye is brightest, her step is
lightest in the gay assembly. In such delicious fancies, time

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quickly glides by, and the welcome hour arrives for her
entrance into the elysian world of which she has had
such bright dreams. How fairy like does everything appear to
her enchanted vision. Each new scene is more charming than
the last. But after a while she finds that beneath
this goodly exterior all is vanity. The flattery which once

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charmed her soul now grates harshly upon her ear. The
ball room has lost its charms, and with wasted health
and embittered heart, she turns away with a conviction that
earthly pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul. And
so forth and so on. There was a buzz of
gratification from time to time during the reading, accompanied by

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whispered ejaculations of how sweet, how eloquent, so true, et cetera.
And after the thing had closed with a peculiarly afflicting sermon,
the applause was enthusiastic. Then arose a slight, melancholy girl
whose face had the interesting paleness that comes of pills
and indigestion, and read a poem two stanzas of it

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will do a Missouri maiden's farewell to Alabama, Alabama, good bye.
I love THEE well, But yet for a while do
I leave thee? Now? Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee
my heart do swell, and burning recollections throng my brow.
For I have wandered through thy flowery woods, have roamed

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and read near Tallapoosa's stream, have listened to Talises's warring floods,
and wooed on Cusa's side Aurora's beam. Yet shame I
not to bear an awful heart, nor blush to turn
behind my tearful eyes. Tis from no stranger land I
now must part, Tis to no stranger's left. I yield

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these sighs welcome and home were mine within this state
whose veils I leave, whose spires fade fast from me,
and cold must be mine eyes and heart and tete
when dear Alabama they turned cold on thee There were
very few there who knew what Tete meant, but the

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poem was very satisfactory. Nevertheless, next appeared a dark complexioned,
black eyed, black haired young lady, who paused an impressive moment,
assumed a tragic expression, and began to read in a measured,
solemn tone. A vision dark and tempestuous was night around

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the throne on high. Not a single star quivered, but
the deep intonations of the heavy thunder constantly vibrated upon
the ear, whilst the terrific lightning reveled in angry mood
through the cloudy chambers of heaven, seeming to scorn the
power exerted over its terror by the illustrious Franklin. Even
the boisterous winds unanimously came forth from their mystic homes

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and blustered about, as if to enhance by their aid
the wildness of the scene at such a time, so dark,
so dreary for human sympathy my very spirit side. But
instead thereof my dearest friend, my counselor, my comforter and guide,
my joy in grief, my second bliss in joy came
to my side. She moved like one of those bright

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beings pictured in the sunny walks of fancies Eden by
the Romantic and young, a queen of beauty, unadorned save
by her own transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step
it failed to make even a sound, And but for
the magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, as other
unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided away, unperceived, unsought. A

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strange sadness rested upon her features, like icy tears upon
the robe of December, as she pointed to the contending
elements without and bade me contemplate the two beings presented.
This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript, and wound
up with a sermon so destructive of all hope to

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non Presbyterians that it took the first prize. This composition
was considered to be the very finest effort of the evening.
The mayor of the village, in delivering the prize to
the author of it, made a warm speech in which
he said that it was by far the most eloquent
thing he had ever listened to, and that Daniel Webster

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himself might well be proud of it. It may be
remarked in passing that the number of compositions in which
the word beauteous was over fondled, and human experience referred
to as life's pages, was up to the usual average.
Now the Master, mellow, almost to the verge of geniality,
put his chair aside, turned his back to the audience,

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and began to draw a map of America on the
blackboard to exercise the geography class upon. But he made
a sad business of it with his unsteady hand, and
a smothered titter rippled over the house. He knew what
the matter was, and set himself to write it. He
sponged out lines and remade them, But he only distorted
them more than ever, and the tittering was more pronounced.

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He threw his entire attention upon his work now, as
if determined not to be put down by the mirth.
He felt that all eyes were fastened upon him. He
imagined he was succeeding, And yet the tittering continued, it
even manifestly increased. And well it might there was a
garret above, pierced with a scuttle over his head, and
down through this scuttle came a cat suspended around the

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haunches by a string. She had a rag tied about
her head and jaws to keep her from mewing. As
she slowly descended, she curved upward and clawed at the string.
She swung downward and clawed at the intangible air. The
tittering rose higher and higher. The cat was within six
inches of the absorbed teacher's head. Down down a little lower,

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and she grabbed his wig with her desperate claws, clung
to it, and was snatched up into the garret in
an instant, with her trophy still in her possession. And
how the light did blaze abroad from the master's bald
pate for the sign painter's boy had gilded it that
broke up the meeting. The boys were avenged, vacation had come.

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Note the pretended compositions quoted in this chapter are taken
without alteration, from a volume entitled Prose and Poetry by
a Western Lady. But they are exactly and precisely after
the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much happier than any
mere imitations could be. End of Chapter twenty one, Chapter

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twenty two, Huck Finn quote scriptures. Tom joined the new
Order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by the showy
character of their regalia. He promised to abstain from smoking, chewing,
and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now
he found out a new thing, namely, that to promise

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not to do a thing is the surest way in
the world to make a body want to go and
do that very thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with
a desire to drink and swear. The desire grew to
be so intense that nothing but the hope of a
chance to display himself in his red sash kept him
from withdrawing from the order. Fourth or July was coming.

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But he soon gave that up. Gave it up before
he had worn his shackles over forty eight hours, and
fixed his hopes upon old Judge Fraser, Justice of the Piece,
who was apparently on his deathbed and would have a
big public funeral since he was so high an official.
During three days, Tom was deeply concerned about the judge's
condition and hungry for news of it. Sometimes his hopes

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ran high, so high that he would venture to get
out his regalia and practice before the looking glass, but
the judge had a most discouraging way of fluctuating. At
last he was pronounced upon the mend and then convalescent.
Tom was disgusted and felt a sense of injury too.
He handed in his resignation at once, and that night

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the judge suffered a relapse and died. Tom resolved that
he would never trust a man like that again. The
funeral was a fine thing. The cadets paraded in a
style calculated to kill the late member with envy. Tom
was a free boy again. However, there was something in
that he could drink and swear now, but found to
his surprise that he did not want to. The simple

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fact that he could took the desire away and the
charm of it. Tom presently wondered to find that his
coveted vacation was beginning to hang a little heavily on
his hands. He attempted a diary, but nothing happened during
three days, and so he abandoned it. The first of
all the Negro minstrel shows came to town and made
a sensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band

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of performers and were happy for two days. Even the
glorious fourth was in some sense a failure, for it
rained hard, there was no procession in consequence, and the
greatest man in the world, as Tom supposed, mister Benton,
an actual United States Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment, for
he was not twenty five feet high, nor even anywhere

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in the neighborhood of it. A circus came. The boys
played circus for three days afterward in tents made of
rag carpeting. Admission three pins for boys, two for girls,
and then circusing was abandoned. A phrenologist and a mesmerizer
came and went again, and left the village duller and
drearier than ever. There were some boys and girls parties,

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but they were so few and so delightful that they
only made the aching voids between ache the harder. Becky
Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with
her parents during vacation. So there was no bright side
to life anywhere. The dreadful secret of the murder was
a chronic misery. It was a very cancer for permanency

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and pain. Then came the measles. During two long weeks,
Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its happenings.
He was very ill. He was interested in nothing. When
he got upon his feet at last and moved feebly downtown,
a melancholy change had come over everything and every creature.
There had been a revival, and everybody had got religion,

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not only the adults, but even the boys and girls.
Tom went about, hoping against hope for the sight of
one blessed sinful face, but disappointment crossed him everywhere. He
found Joe Harper studying a testament, and turned sadly away
from the depressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers and found
him visiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He

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hunted up Jim Hollis, who called his attention to the
precious blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every
boy he encountered added another ton to his depression, And
when in desperation he flew for refuge at last to
the bosom of Huckleberry Finn, and was received with a
scriptural quotation. His heart broke, and he crept home and
to bed, realizing that he alone of all the town

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was lost forever and forever. In that night there came
on a terrific storm with driving rain, awful claps of thunder,
and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his head with
his bedclothes and waited, in a horror of suspense for
his doom. For he had not the shadow of a
doubt that all this hubbub was about him. He believed
he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above to

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the extremity of endurance, and that this was the result.
It might have seemed to him a waste of pomp
and ammunition to kill a bug with a battery of artillery,
but there seemed nothing incongruous about the getting up such
an expensive thunder storm as this to knock the turf
from under an insect like himself. By and by, the
tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing its object. The

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boy's first impulse was to be grateful and reform. His
second was to wait, for there might not be any
more storms. The next day the doctors were back, Tom
had relapsed. The three weeks he spent on his back
this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad
at last, he was hardly grateful that he had been spared,

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remembering how lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn
he was. He drifted listlessly down the street and found
Jim Hollis, acting as judge in a juvenile court that
was trying a cat for murder in the presence of
her victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck
Finn up an alley eating a stolen melon. Poor lads, they,

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like Tom, had suffered a relapse. End of chapter twenty two,
Chapter twenty three, the salvation of of Muff Potter. At last,
the sleepy atmosphere was stirred and vigorously. The murder trial
came on in the court. It became the absorbing topic
of village talk. Immediately Tom could not get away from it.

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Every reference to the murder sent a shudder to his heart.
For his troubled conscience and fears almost persuaded him that
these remarks were put forth in his hearing as feelers.
He did not see how he could be suspected of
knowing anything about the murder, but still he could not
be comfortable in the midst of this gossip. It kept
him in a cold shiver all the time. He took

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Huck to a lonely place to have a talk with him.
It would be some relief to unseal his tongue for
a little while, to divide his burden of distress with
another sufferer. Moreover, he wanted to assure himself that Huck
had remained discreet. Huck, have you ever told anybody about that?
But what you know? What? Oh? Cour course, I haven't

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never a word her, a solitary word. So help me?
What makes you ask? Well? I was afeared? Why Tom sawyer?
We wouldn't be alive two days if that got found out.
You know that Tom felt more comfortable after a pause, Huck.
They couldn't anybody get you to tell? Could they get

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me to tell? Why? If I wanted that half breed
devil to drown me, they could get me to tell?
They ain't no different way. Well that's all right then,
I reckon, we're safe as long as we keep mum.
But let's swear again anyway, it's more sure. I'm agreed.
So they swore again with dread solemnities. What is the
talk around, Huck? I've heard a power of it talk. Well,

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it's just muff Potter, Muff Potter, muff Potter all the time.
It keeps me in a sweat constant says, I want
to hide somewheres. That's just the same way they go
on round me. I reckon, he's a goner. Don't you
feel sorry for him? Sometimes? Most always, most always he
ain't no account. But then he ain't ever done anything
to hurt anybody, just fishes a little to get money

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to get drunk on and loa surround considerable. But lord,
we all do that leastways, most of us preachers and
such like. But he's kind of good. He'd give me
half a fish once when there weren't enough for two,
and lots of times he's kind of stood by me
when I was out of luck. Well, he's mended kites

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for me, huck, and knitted hooks onto my line. I
wish we could get him out of there. My We
couldn't get him out, tom And besides, to win't do
any good. They'd catch him again, Yes, so they would.
But I hate to hear him abuse him so like
the Dickens, when he never done that. I do too, Tom, Lord,
I hear him say he's the bloodiest looking villain in

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this country, and they wonder he wasn't ever hung before. Yes,
they talk like that all the time. I've heard him
say that if he was to get free, they'd lynch him,
and they'd do it too. The boys had a lot talk,
but it brought them little comfort. As the twilight drew on,
they found themselves hanging about the neighborhood of a little
isolated jail, perhaps with an undefined hope that something would

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happen that might clear away their difficulties. But nothing happened.
There seemed to be no angels or fairies interested in
this luckless captive. The boys did as they had often
done before, went to the cell grating and gave Potter
some tobacco and matches. He was on the ground floor
and there were no guards. His gratitude for their gifts
had always smote their conscience before, it cut deeper than ever.

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This time. They felt cowardly and treacherous to the last degree.
When Potter said, you've been mighty good to me. Boys
better'n anybody else in this town. And I don't forget it.
I don't often, I says to myself, says I. I
used to mend all the boys kites and things, and
show em where the good fishing places was, and befriend
em what I could, and now they've all forgot old

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Muff when he's in trouble. But Tom don't and Hut don't.
They don't forget him, says I, and I don't forget them. Well, boys,
I'd done an awful thing drunk and crazy at the time.
That's the only way I count for it. And now
I got to swing for it. And it's right right
and best too, I reckon, I hope. So anyway, well,

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we won't talk about that. I don't want to make
you feel bad you've befriended me. But what I want
to say is, don't you ever get drunk, then you
won't ever get here. Stand a little further west. So
that's it. It's a prime comfort to see faces that's
friendly when a body's in such a muck of trouble
and there don't none come here, but yarn, good friendly faces.

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Good friendly faces, get up on one other's backs and
let me touch them. That's it. Shake hands, urinal come
through the bars, but mine's too big, little hands and weak.
And they've helped Muff powder of power, and they'd help
him more if they could. Tom went home miserable. Dreams

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that night were full of horrors. The next day, and
the day after he hung about the courtroom, drawn by
an impossibly irresistible impulse to go in, but forcing himself
to stay out. Huck was having the same experience. They
studiously avoided each other, each wandered away from time to time,
but the same dismal fascination always brought them back. Presently.

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Tom kept his ears open when idlers sauntered out of
the courtroom, but invariably heard distressing news. The toils were
closing more and more relentlessly around poor Potter. At the
end of the second day, the village talk was to
the effect that injun Joe's evidence stood firm and unshaken,
and that there was not the slightest question as to
what the jury's verdict would be. Tom was out late

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that night and came to bed through the window. He
was in a tremendous state of excitement. It was hours
before he got to sleep. All the village flocked to
the court house the next morning, for this was to
be the great day. Both sexes were about equally represented
in the packed audience. After a long wait, the jury
filed in and took their places. Shortly afterward, Potter, Pale

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and Haggard timid and hopeless, was brought in with chains
upon him, and seated where all the curious eyes could
stare at him. No less conspicuous was injun Joe, stolid
as ever. There was another pause, and then the judge
arrived and the sheriff proclaimed the opening of the court.
The usual whisperings among the lawyers and gathering together the

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papers followed. These details, and accompanying delays, worked up an
atmosphere of preparation that was as impressive as it was fascinating.
Now a witness was called, who testified that he found
Muff Potter washing in the brook at an early hour
of the morning, that the murder was discovered, and that
he immediately sneaked away. After some further questioning, counsel for

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the prosecution said, take the witness. The prisoner raised his
eyes for a moment, but dropped them again when his
own counsel said, I have no questions to ask him.
The next witness proved the fire of the knife near
the corpse. Counsel for the prosecution said, take the witness,
I have no questions to ask him. Potter's lawyer replied.

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A third witness swore he had often seen the knife
in Potter's possession take the witness Council for Potter declined
to question him. The faces of the audience began to
betray annoyance. Did this attorney mean to throw away his
client's life without an effort? Several witnesses deposed concerning Potter's
guilty behavior when brought to the scene of the murder.

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They were allowed to leave the stand without being cross questioned.
Every detail of the damaging circumstances that occurred in the
graveyard upon that morning, which all present remembered so well,
was brought out by credible witnesses, but none of them
were cross examined by Potter's lawyer. The perplexity and dissatisfaction
of the house expressed itself in murmurs and provoked a

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reproof from the bench counsel for the prosecution. Now said,
by the oaths of citizens, whose simple word is above suspicion,
we have fastened this awful crime beyond all possibility of
question upon the unhappy prisoner at the bar, we rest
our case. Here a groan escaped from poor Potter, and

(28:12):
he put his face in his hands and rocked his
body softly to and fro while a painful silence reigned
in the courtroom. Many men were moved, and many women's
compassion testified itself in tears. Counsel for the defense rose
and said, your honor, in our remarks at the opening
of this trial, we foreshadowed our purpose to prove that

(28:34):
our client did this fearful deed while under the influence
of a blind and irresponsible delirium produced by drink. We
have changed our mind. We shall not offer that plea.
Then to the clerk call Thomas Sawyer. A puzzled amazement
awoke in every face in the house, not even accepting Potter's.

(28:55):
Every eye fastened itself with wondering interest upon Tom as
he rose and took his place upon the stand. The
boy looked wild enough, for he was badly scared. The
oath was administered, Toma Sawyer, where were you? On the
seventeenth of June, about the hour of midnight? Tom glanced
at injun Joe's iron face, and his tongue failed him.

(29:19):
The audience listened breathless, but the words refused to come.
After a few moments, however, the boy got a little
of his strength back and managed to put enough of
it into his voice to make part of the house
here in the graveyard. A little bit louder. Please, don't
be afraid you were in the graveyard. A contemptuous smile

(29:39):
flitted across injun Joe's face. Were you anywhere near Horse
William's grave? Yes, sir, speak up, just a trifle louder.
How near were you near? As I am to you?
Were you hidden or not? I was hid where behind
the elms that's on the edge of the grave. In

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Joe gave a barely perceptible start an he went with you, Yes, sir,
I went there with Wait, wait a moment, never mind
mentioning your companion's name. We will produce him at the
proper time. Did you carry anything there with you? Tom
hesitated and looked confused. Speak out, my boy, don't be diffident.

(30:20):
The truth is always respectable. What did you take there?
Only er eh, dead cat? There was a ripple of mirth,
which the court checked. We will produce the skeleton of
that cat. Now, my boy, tell us everything that occurred.
Tell it in your own way. Don't skip anything, and
don't be afraid. Tom began hesitatingly at first, but as

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he warmed to his subject, his words flowed more and
more easily. In a little while, every sound ceased but
his own voice. Every eye fixed itself upon him with
parted lips and bated breath. The audience hung upon his words,
taking no note of time, wrapped in the ghastly fascination
of the tail. The strain upon pent emotion reached its

(31:05):
climax when the boys said, And as the doctor fetched
the board around and muff Potter fell injun Joe jumped
with a knife and crash, quick as lightning. The half
breed sprang for a window, tore his way through all opposers,
and was gone. End of Chapter twenty three.