The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Chapter 11-12

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Chapter eleven,
Conscience racks Tom close upon the hour of noon. The
whole village was suddenly electrified with the ghastly news. No
need of the as yet undreamed of telegraph, the tale
flew from man to man, from group to group, from

(00:22):
house to house, with little less than telegraphic speed. Of course,
the schoolmaster gave holiday for that afternoon. The town would
have thought strangely of him if he had not. A
gory knife had been found close to the murdered man,
and it had been recognized by somebody as belonging to
Muff Potter. So the story ran, and it was said

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that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing himself
in the branch about one or two o'clock in the morning,
and that Potter had at once sneaked off suspicious circumstances,
especially the washing, which was not a habit with Potter.
It was also said that the town had been ransacked
for this murderer. The public are not slow in the

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matter of sifting evidence and arriving at a verdict, but
that he could not be found. Horsemen had departed down
all the roads in every direction, and the sheriff was
confident that he would be captured before night. All the
town was drifting toward the graveyard. Tom's heartbreak vanished, and
he joined the procession, not because he would not a
thousand times rather go anywhere else, but because an awful,

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unaccountable fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place,
he wormed his small body through the crowd and saw
the dismal spectacle. It seemed to him an age, since
he was there before. Somebody pinched his arm. He turned
and his eyes met Huckleberry's. Then both looked elsewhere at once,
and wondered if anybody had noticed anything in their mutual glance.

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But everybody was talking and intent upon the grisly spectacle
before them. Poor fellow, poor young fellow. This ought to
be a lesson to grave robbers. Muff potter'll hang for
this if they catch him. This was the drift of remark,
and the minister said it was a judgment. His hand
is here now. Tom shivered from head to heel, for

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his eye fell upon the stolid face of injun Joe.
At this moment, the crowd began to sway and struggle,
and voices shouted, it's him, it's him, he's coming himself.
Who who? From twenty voices muff Potter, Hello, he stopped.
Look out, he's turning. Don't let him get away. People
in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said

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he wasn't trying to get away. He only looked doubtful
and perplexed. Infernal impudence, said a bystander wanted to come
and take a quiet look at his work. I reckon
didn't expect any company. The crowd fell apart now, and
the sheriff came through a steentpatiously leading Potter by the arm.
The poor fellow's face was haggard, and his eyes showed

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the fear that was upon him. When he stood before
the murdered man, he shook as with a palsy, and
he put his face in his hands and burst into tears.
I didn't do it, friends, he sobbed. Pon my word
an honor. I never done it. Who's accused? You? Shouted
a voice. This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted

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his face and looked around him, with a pathetic hopelessness
in his eyes. He saw injun Joe and exclaimed, oh,
injun Joe, you promised me you'd never Is that your knife?
And it was thrust before him by the sheriff. Potter
would have fallen if they had caught him and eased
him to the ground. Then he said, something's told me

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to if I didn't come back and get He shuddered,
and then waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture
and said, tell him, Joe, tell him, it ain't any
use any more. Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring,
and heard the stony hearted liar reel off his serene statement.
They expecting every moment that the clear sky would deliver

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God's lightnings upon his head, and wondering to see how
long the stroke was delayed, And when he had finished
and still stood alive in whole, their wavering impulse to
break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner's life
faded and vanished away. For plainly this miscreant had sold
himself to Satan, and it would be fatal to meddle

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with the property of such a power as that. Why
didn't you leave? What did you want to come here for?
Somebody said, I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it.
Potter moaned, I wanted to run away, but I couldn't
seem to come anywhere but here, and he fell to
sobbing again. Injun Joe repeated his statement just as calmly.
A few minutes afterwards, on the inquest under oath, and

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the boys, seeing that the lightnings were still withheld, were
confirmed in their belief that Joe had sold himself to
the devil. He was now become to them the most
balefully interesting object they had ever looked upon, and they
could not take their fascinated eyes from his face. They
inwardly resum to watch him nights when opportunity should offer,

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in the hope of getting a glimpse of his dread master.
Injun Joe helped to raise the body of the murdered
man and put it in a wagon for removal, and
it was whispered through the shuddering crowd that the wound
bled a little. The boys thought that this happy circumstance
would turn suspicion in the right direction, but they were disappointed.
For more than one villager remarked it was within three

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feet of Muff Potter when it'd done it. Tom's fearful
secret and gnawing conscience disturbed his sleep for as much
as a week after this, and at breakfast one morning,
Sid said, Tom, you pitch around and talk in your
sleep so much that you keep me awake half the time.
Tom blanched and dropped his eyes. It's a bad sign,

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said Aunt Polly gravely. What you got on your mind? Tom,
Nothing nothing to know of. But the boy's hands shook
so that he spilled his coffee. And you do talk
such ugh, Sid said. Last night you said it's blood.
It's blood, that's what it is. You said that over
and over, and you said, don't torment me. So I'll

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tell tell what what is it? You'll tell Everything was
swimming before Tom. There's no telling what might have happened now.
But luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly's face,
and she came to Tom's relief. Without knowing it. She said,
show it's that dreadful murder. I dream about it most
every night myself. Sometimes I dream it's me that done it.

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Mary said she had been affected much the same way.
Sid seemed satisfied. Tom got out of the presents as
quick as he plausibly could, and after that he complained
of a toothache for a week and tied up his
jaws every night. He never knew that Sid lay nightly
watching and frequently slipped the bandage free and then leaned
on his elbow listening a good while at a time,

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and afterwards slipped the bandage back to its place again.
Tom's distress of mind wore off grond gradually, and the
toothache grew irksome and was discarded. If Sid really managed
to make anything out of Tom's disjointed mutterings, he kept
it to himself. It seemed to Tom that his schoolmates
never would get done holding inquests on dead cats, and

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thus keeping his trouble present to his mind. Sid noticed
that Tom never was coroner at one of these inquiries,
though it had been his habit to take the lead
in all new enterprises. He noticed too, that Tom never
acted as a witness, and that was strange, and Sid
did not overlook the fact that Tom even showed a
marked aversion to these inquests and always avoided them when

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he could. Sid marveled but said nothing. However, even inquests
went out of vogue at last and ceased to torture Tom's
conscience every day or two during this time of sorrow,
Tom watched his opportunity and went to the little grated
jail window and smuggled such small comforts through to the

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murderer as he could get hold of. The jail was
a trifling little brick den that stood in a marsh
at the edge of the village, and no guards were
afforded for it. Indeed, it was seldom occupied. These offerings
greatly helped to ease Tom's conscience. The villagers had a
strong desire to tar and feather injun Joe and ride
him on a rail for body snatching, but so formidable

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was his character that nobody could be found who was
willing to take the lead in the matter, so it
was dropped. He had been careful to begin both of
his inquest statements with the fight without confessing the grave
robbery that preceded it. Therefore, it was deemed wisest not
to try the case in the courts. At present end

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of chapter eleven, Chapter twelve, The Cat and the pain Killer.
One of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted away
from its secret troubles was that it had found a
new and weighty matter to interest itself about Becky Thatcher
had stopped coming to school. Tom had struggled with his

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pride a few days and tried to whistle her down
the wind, but failed. He began to find himself hanging
around her father's house nights and feeling very miserable. She
was ill. What if she should die? There was distraction
in the thought. He no longer took an interest in war,
nor even in piracy. The charm of life was gone.

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There was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop
away and his bat. There was no joy in them
any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to try
all manner of remedies on him. She was one of
those people who are infatuated with patent medicines and all
new fangled methods of producing health or mending it. She
was an inveterate experimenter in these things. When something fresh

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in this line came out, she was in a fever
right away to try it, not on herself, for she
was never ailing, but on anybody else that came handy.
She was a subscriber for all the health periodicals and
phenomological frauds, and the solemn ignorance they were inflated with
was breath to her nostrils. All the rot they contained

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about ventilation and how to go to bed and how
to get up, and what to eat and what to drink,
and how much exercise to take, and what frame of
mind to keep one's self in, and what sort of
clothing to wear, was all gospel to her, and she
never observed that her health journals of the current month
customarily upset everything they had recommended the month before. She

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was as simple hearted and honest as the day was long,
and so she was an easy victim. She gathered together
her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed
with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking
with the hell following after. But she never suspected that
she was not an anbae of healing and the balm

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of Gilead in disguise to the suffering neighbors. The water
treatment was new now, and Tom's low condition was a
windfall to her. She had him out at daylight every morning,
stood him up in the wood shed, and drowned him
with a deluge of cold water. Then she scrubbed him
down with a towel like a file, and so brought

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him to Then she rolled him up in a wet
sheet and put him away under blankets till she sweated
his soul clean, and the yellow stains of it came
through his pores, as Tom said, Yet, notwithstanding all this,
the boy grew more and more melancholy and pale and dejected.
She had a hot baths, sitz baths, shower baths, and plunges.

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The boy remained as dismal as a hearse. She began
to assist the water with a slim oatmeal diet and
blister plasters. She calculated his capacity as she would a JUG's,
and filled him up every day with quack curroles. Tom
had become indifferent to by this time. This phase filled
the old lady's heart with consternation. This indifference must be

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broken up at any cost. Now she heard of pain
killer for the first time. She ordered a lot at once.
She tasted it and was filled with gratitude. It was
simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water
treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith to pain killer.
She gave Tom a tea spoonful and watched with the

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deepest anxiety for the result. Her troubles were instantly at rest.
Her soul at peace again, for the indifference was broken up.
The boy could not have shown a wilder, heartier interest
if she had built a fire under him. Tom felt
that it was time to wake up. This sort of
life might be romantic enough in his blighted condition, but

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it was getting to have too little sentiment and too
much distracting variety about it. So he thought over various
plans for relief, and finally hit upon that of professing
to be fond of painkiller. He asked for it so
often that he became a nuisance, and his aunt ended
by telling him to help himself and quit bothering her.

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If it had been sid, she would have had no
misgivings to alloy her delight, but since it was Tom,
she watched the bottle clandestinely. She found that the medicine
did really diminish, but it did not occur to her
that the boy was mending the health of a crack
in the sitting room floor with it. One day, Tom
was in the act of dosing the crack when his

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aunt's yellow cat came along, purring, eyeing the teaspoon avariciously
and begging for a taste. Tom said, don't ask for
it unless you want it, Peter, but Peter signified that
he did want it. You better make sure, Peter was sure.
Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you,
because there ain't anything mean about me. But if you

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find you don't like it, you mustn't blame anybody but
your own self. Peter was agreeable, so Tom pried his
mouth open and poured down the painkiller. Peter sprang a
couple of yards in the air, and then delivered a
war whoop and set off round and round the room,
banging against furniture, upsetting flower pots, and making general havoc. Next,

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he rose on his hind feet and pranced around in
a frenzy of enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder
and his voice proclaiming his unappeasable happiness. Then he went
tearing around the house again, spreading chaos and destruction in
his path. Aunt Polly entered in time to see him
throw a few double somersets, deliver a final mighty hurrah,

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and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of
the flower pots with him. The old lady stood petrified
with astonishment, peering over her glasses. Tom lay on the floor,
expiring with laughter. Tom, What on earth ails that cat?
I don't know, Aunt, gasped the boy. Why I never

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see anything like it? What did make him act so? Deed?
I don't know, Aunt, Polly? Cats always act so when
they're having a good time. They do, do they? There
was something in the tone that made Tom apprehensive. Yes'm,
that is I believe they do? You do? Yes'm? The

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old lady was bending down Tom watching with interest emphasized
by anxiety. Too late, he divined her drift. The handle
of the tell tale teaspoon was visible under the bed balance.
Aunt Polly took it, held it up. Tom winced and
dropped his eyes, and Polly raised him by the usual
handle his ear, and cracked his head soundly with her thimble. Now, sir,

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what did you want to treat that poor dumb beast
so for? I'd done it out of pity for him,
because he hadn't any aunt, hadn't any aunt, You numskull?
What has that got to do with it? Heaps, Because
if he'd a had one, she'd have burnt him out herself.
She'd have roasted his bowels out of him any more

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feeling than if he was a human aunt Polly felt
a sudden pang of remorse. This was putting the thing
in a new light. What was cruelty to a cat
might be cruelty to a boy too. She began to soften.
She felt sorry. Her eyes watered a little, and she
put her hand on Tom's head and said gently, I

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was meaning for the best, Tom, and Tom, it did
do you good. Tom looked up in her face, with
just a perceptible twinkle peeping through his gravity. I know
you was meaning for the best, Auntie, and so was
I With Peter. It done him good too, I never
seen him get around. So since, oh, go along with you, Tom,

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before you aggravate me again, and you try and see
if you can't be a good boy for once, and
you needn't take any more medicine. Tom reached school ahead
of time. It was noticed that this strange thing had
been occurring every day latterly, and now, as usual of late,
he hung about the gate of the schoolyard instead of
playing with his comrades. He was sick, he said, and

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he looked it. He tried to seem to be looking everywhere,
but whither he really was looking down the road. Presently
Jeff Thatcher how in sight, and Tom's face lighted. He
gazed a moment and then turned sorrowfully away. When Jeff arrived,
Tom accosted him and led up warily to opportunities for
remark about Becky. But the giddy lad never could see

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the bait. Tom watched and watched, hoping whenever a frisking
frock came in sight, and hating the owner of it
as soon as he saw she was not the right one.
At last, frocks ceased to appear, and he dropped hopelessly
into their dumps. He entered the empty schoolhouse and sat
down to suffer. Then one more frock passed in at

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the gate, and Tom's heart gave a great bound. The
next instant he was out and going on like an Indian,
yelling and laughing and chasing boys, jumping over the fence
at risk of life and limb throwing hand springs, standing
on his head, doing all all the heroic things he
could conceive of, and keeping a furtive eye out all
the while to see if Becky Thatcher was noticing. But

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she seemed to be unconscious of it all. She never looked.
Could it be possible that she was not aware that
he was there. He carried his exploits to her immediate vicinity,
came war whooping around, snatched a body's cap, hurled it
to the roof of the schoolhouse, broke through a group
of boys, tumbling them in every direction, and fell, sprawling

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himself under Becky's nose, almost upsetting her, and she turned
with her nose in the air, and he heard her say, humph,
some people think they're mighty smart, always showing off. Tom's
cheeks burned, he gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed
and crestfallen. End of chapter twelve.