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Show DAVID 0. SELZNICK - fcl locust bloom" fragrance filled the air. ' ' .'!'.. But when Tom Sawyer surveyed the thirty yards of board fence, nine; feet high, that he was under or-, or-, ders to whitewash, life seemed hoi-' low, and his spirit was crushed with melancholy. Aunt Polly, followed by Sid, : ushered him to the scene of his. ! labors, and departed with the air of one whose mission had been well 'done. . -r. As Tom raised the brush for the first stroke, Little Jim, with a tin' pail, came skipping through the gate on his way to the pump. Tom offered to fetch the water if Jim; I would whitewash. Jim demurred, 'saying Aunt Polly would "snatch de haid off en'" him. Slowly, painfully, Tom went on with his task. Soon the free boys, would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions and j they would deride him for having '. to work. Tom's sorrows multiplied i with each stroke of the brush. At j this dark and honeless moment, a. Tom meanwhile had dashed not to school, but to a swimming hola near the river. When he finally came home he recounted his adventures adven-tures to Little Jim, a small colored boy who helped around the house, as they chopped the next day's wood. At Bupper, Aunt Polly asked questions ques-tions full of guile. She loved to contemplate con-template her diplomacies as marvels Chapter One "Tom . . , TOM ...TO M ! Only the katydids answered Aunt Polly In the quiet little Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg that i lazy sun&ner's day. The old lady i pulled her spectacles down and . looked over them about the room; Mien she looked under them. She ; seldom looked through them they I "were her state pair and she could : have seen through a pair of stove lids just as well. As Aunt Folly turned toward the kitchen of her modest home she aid not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear: "Well, if I get hold of you I'll" She did not finish for by this time she was punching under the I bed with the broom and she needed j bread to punctuate the punches. 1 She resurrected nothing but the cat. In the kitchen stood Tom's ; younger half-brother, Sid, a smug jand ..;y little "good boy" attired In p:-. cpron, wiping dishes. I "I rtvr see the beat of that boy," ,mu Si'ed Aunt Polly, "why can't tvt L. Liore like you, Sidney?" : "I reckon he Jest doesn't try hf-ci enough," replied Sid, trying so 1 d to be nice that he dropped Ltne i'.le he was polishing. of deep cunning. "Tom, it was middling warm is school, warn't It?" "Yes'm." "Didn't you want to go in a-swim ming, Tom?" Now Tom knew where the wind lay, and he forestalled the next move. "Some of us pumped our heads, mine's damp yet. See?" Aunt Polly tried another trick. "Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, did you?" Tom opened his jacket His shirt collar was securely sewed. Aunt Polly was half sorry her strategy had miscarried, half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient obedi-ent conduct, when up piped Sidneys "Didn't you sew his collar withi white thread. Aunt Polly?" i "Why, yea, I did," said Aunt Polly. I great inspiration burst upon him. He resumed his work with an air of intense concentration. In ; sight hove Joe Harper, the boy whose ridicule he had been dread-. dread-. ing. Joe was eating an apple, but ' between bites whooped melodiously, , for he was impersonating the ; steamboat "Big Missouri." Tom paid no attention. "I'm goin' a-swimming, I am," . said Joe, "but accourse you'd . druther work." "What do you call work?" said Tom, looking at Joe with feigned, surprise. Joe WAS surprised. "Why, ain't that work?" "Well,", said Tom, wielding the whitewash brush with a few ar- tistic flourishes "all I know Is, it ! suits Tom Sawyer." i ' Joe stopped nibbling his apple, and said: "Say, let me whitewash a little." Tom pondered the proposition,, finally said reluctantly: "No, no, if it was the inside I i wouldn't mind and Aunt Polly wouldn't but she's awful partickler1 ; about the outside." Joe tried bribery. He offered a , Bible ticket, which Tom scorned, jbut finally the offer of the partly eaten apple and the knob off a brass roor knocker got J&e jv-; jv-; whitewash brush. Tom sat down on a barrel, with the apple, and grinned to himself while Joe put everything he hadj into his task. , By the tune Joe had fagged, TonJ had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite; Johnny Millar succeeded him for a dead rat and a string to swing it on. Other opportunities developed, i ! and by mid-afternoon, Tom was lit- , prnllv rnllino- Ir. wanlrh Whila ha ! i sat idle, basking in plentiful com-' Ipany, half the boys in town emptied : their pockets for the privilege of whitewashing. The fence received not one, but three coat3 before the whitewash ran but. . Headed home for supper, Tom passed the house where Jeff Thatcher lived and saw a new girl in the garden a lovely little blue-eyed blue-eyed creature with yellow hair plaited into two long tails. A cer- tain Amy Lawrence vanished from his heart. i The angel was near the fence,' busy picking flowers and happily and loudly humming a tune. She' redoubled the energy of her musical musi-cal and horticultural efforts, as Tom neared, but gave no other sign that she was conscious he existed. Tom began to show off, apparently for his own amusement. He did leaps and cartwheels, while she serenely hummed and minded her own business. Finally she left the garden, but as she departed, tossed a pansy over the fence, as if it were a bloom rejected. To Tom, the sad-eyed sad-eyed little flower took on an immense im-mense significance. He edged over to it, picked it up with his toe, and nonchalantly transferred it on hia hand. Then , he went home, entranced. en-tranced. Next day, Mary Sawyer prepare-: Tom for Sunday School. She made iiim rehearse his Bible verses, and Baw that his hands and face were washed and his hair plastered conventionally con-ventionally in place. She crowned him with a speckled straw hat. He was uncomfortable and looked it. At the church, where the Thatcher Thatch-er family arrived at about the same time as the Sawyers, Becky gave no sign that she had seen Tom unti'. just as she and her parents en- "What do you col "Now there, that's all right," rasped Aunt Polly. "You didn't mean to do it. Go on back to school don't wait for Tom." Sid jerked off his apron, slapped on his hat, and as he left the house by the back porch, stopped at the door of the jam closet and called: "Good-bye, Tom!" Aunt Polly tip-toed to the door and opened It, and when Tom darted out, grabbed him by the ear and rapped him smartly on the head with a thimble-covered finger. Tom dropped a paper-covered dime novel of the era, "The Life of John Murrell, River Pirate." "Forty times I've told you If you didn't leave that jam alone, I'd ekin you alive!" said Aunt Polly. Tom obligingly handed her a switch from behind the closet door. As the switch hovered, he pointed and yelled: "Aunt Polly! ..What's that behind you?" As she whirled and snatched her Bkirts from danger, Tom bolted. Surprised and angered the old lady stood for a moment looking after the fleeting boy, then shook Jier head, half amused, half perplexed. per-plexed. . . V She entered the kitchen and found Mary Sawyer, a dreamy, pretty girl of about fifteen, working intently on her latest -poem.. "aI"'t dm' my duty by my own dead sister's child, and that's the lord's truth, ain't it?" she addressed ad-dressed her meditative niece. TTes, ma'am,' said Mary absentia- workt" said Tom. "Well," gloated Sidney, "that thread is black." Tom fled, leaving a promise of m licking for Sid. Just around the corner he met a stranger in town, a br,v a shad larger than himself. '"''! bey was well dressed on a v. . . . ..ay and had shoes on. There v.-.-t an aic about him that irked 'rem. Neither boy spoke as they moved sidewise in a circle, face to face and eye to eye. Finally Tom said: "I can lick you." 'Td like to see you try it" A few more such challenges and counter-invitations and then both; boys were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, punching and scratching: at . each others' noses, covering themselves with dirt and glory.: Presently, through the fog of battle, bat-tle, Tom . appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him wito his fists. "Holler "nuff?" demanded Tont At last the stranger got out a smothered "'Nuff," and Tom let him up and said: "Now that'll learn you, better look out who) you're fooling with next time." ' He got home pretty late and when his aunt saw the state of his clothes her resolution to turn hia Saturday holiday Into captivity at hard labor became adamantine. Chapter Two Saturday morning, the summer sun wag bright, hearts sang and tered the Sunday school. Then she turned her head slightly and gave him the ghost of an alluring smile. , Tom's lovesick expression changed as he got an idea, collaring his j various boy friends, he swiftly I , traded the loot he had amassed on ' I h-,s whitewashing deal, for Bible I I tiol'.ets. When the Sunday school sur n--- ' tendent called for the pupil who had learned 2000 verses aid had tickets to show for such diligence, Tom amazed the gathering by step ping forward to claim a Bible. And now my little man." said Thatcher, who as guest of honor I Wa3 awarding the prizes, "no doubt : Vou know the names of the twelve apostles. Who were the first two?" There was a dreadful wait. Mrs. Thatcher said kindly: "Poor boy, he's frightened . . but he'll tell me. Now, Thomas' the names of the first two apostles Were ? " "Adam and Eve," said Tom desperately. des-perately. There was consternation. "1 meant David and Goliath no Sodom and Gomorrah," Tom hastily has-tily amended. The superintendent very properly snatched the Bible from his hands (To be Continued) Copyright 1B38 by United ArUsU Corporation |