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He looked at the new girl, till he saw that she had discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and began to “show off” in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win her admiration. Although the girl seemed not to pay attention, she threw a flower to him just before she went into the house.
Tom tried to act indifferent, but then he ran and took the flower between his toes when he was sure that the girl was gone.
He stayed around the house for the rest of the evening, hoping to see more of the girl, but she did not return, so he went back home.
He was in such a good mood that his aunt wondered “what had got into the child.” He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his aunt’s very nose, and got hit over his knuckles for it. He said:
“Aunt, you don’t whack Sid when he takes it.”
“Well, you’d be always into that sugar if I weren’t watching you.”
She stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, reached for the sugar-bowl. But Sid’s fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke.
That put Tom in a good mood. He said to himself that he would not speak a word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell.
When the old lady came back and saw the broken bowl she instead struck Tom! He cried out:
“Hold on, now, what are you belting me for?—Sid broke it!”
Aunt Polly paused. But when she got her tongue again, she only said:
“Umf! Well, you probably deserved that anyway, for all the mischief you’ve done.”
Then she felt sorry, and wanted to say something kind and loving; but thought that this would mean she admitted being wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silence.
Tom sulked in a corner. He knew that in her heart his aunt loved him, but he refused to acknowledge it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him asking for a forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the river, dead. How she would throw herself upon him, and how would she cry! But he would lie there cold and white and make no sign. All of this put him in such a melancholy mood that he walked out at one door and into the street.
He wandered for a bit. He saw a log raft in the river, and sat down on its outer edge and contemplated the dreary vastness of the stream. Then he thought of his flower.
He got it out, looked at it, and it improved his mood. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would she cry? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world?
This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he thought about it again and again. At last he rose up sighing and walked away.
About half-past nine or ten o’clock he came along the deserted street to where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; heard nothing. A candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain of a second-story window. Was she there? He climbed the fence, carefully walked through the plants, and stood under that window. He looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid down on the ground under it, with his hands clasped on his chest and holding his flower. He thought that here he would die—out in the cold world, with no shelter over his homeless head. And she would see him in the morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless body …
The window went up, a maid-servant’s voice said something loudly, and a deluge of water drenched him from head to toe.
Tom sprang up. There was a whiz as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, and a small form went over the fence and into the darkness.
Chapter IV
On Sunday after breakfast Tom went to learn “his verses”[11] from the Bible. Sid had learned his lesson days before.
Tom tried very hard to the memorize the five verses, and he chose part of the Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter.
At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, but no more. His cousin Mary took his book to hear him recite, and he tried his best:
“Blessed are the—a—a—”
“Poor—”
“Yes—poor; blessed are the poor—a—a—”
“In spirit—”
“In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they—they—”
“Theirs—”
“For theirs. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they—they—”
“Sh—”
“For they—a—”
“S, H, A—”
“For they S, H—Oh, I don’t know what it is!”
“Shall!”
“Oh, shall! for they shall—for they shall—a—a—shall mourn—a—a—blessed are they that shall—they that—a—they that shall mourn, for they shall—a—shall what? Why don’t you tell me, Mary?—what do you want to be so mean for?”
“Oh, Tom, I’m not teasing you. I wouldn’t do that. You must go and learn it again. Don’t you be discouraged, Tom, you’ll manage it—and if you do, I’ll give you something ever so nice. There, now, that’s a good boy.”
“All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is.”
“Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it’s nice, it is nice.”
“You bet you that’s so, Mary. All right, I’ll tackle it again.”
That made Tom do his best—and be a success. Mary gave him a brand-new “Barlow” knife worth twelve and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything, but it was a “sure-enough” Barlow. He was going to try the knife on the furniture when he was called off to dress for Sunday-school.
Mary took care of the process. She made Tom put on a suit that had been used only on Sundays during two years. He now looked much better and felt very uncomfortable. He hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but she asked Tom to put them on:
“Please, Tom—that’s a good boy.”
So he got into the shoes. Mary was soon ready, and the three children went to Sunday-school—a place that Tom hated with his whole heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it.
At the door Tom asked another pupil:
“I say, Billy, have you got a yellow ticket?”
“Yes.”
“What’ll you take for it?”
“What’ll you give?”
“Piece of liquorish and a fish-hook.”
So he exchanged one of his “treasures” for a yellow ticket. Then Tom traded a couple of other small things for three red tickets, and a couple of blue ones. He went on buying tickets of different colours ten or fifteen minutes longer.
Then the lesson began. Almost all the children in Tom’s class were noisy, and troublesome. When they came to recite their lessons, no one knew his verses well. However, each pupil got his reward—in small blue tickets; each blue ticket was pay for two learned verses. Ten blue tickets could be exchanged for a red one; and ten red tickets could be exchanged for a yellow one. For ten yellow tickets Mr. Walters (the teacher) gave a very cheap Bible (worth forty cents) to the pupil. So, to get it a pupil had to learn two thousand verses. Mary had collected two Bibles in this way—it cost her two years of work.
Frankly speaking, Tom has never been interested in getting such a prize, but he wanted the glory and success.
In the middle of the lesson Mr. Walters said to the pupils:
“Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There—that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one little girl who is looking out of the window—I am afraid she thinks I am out there somewhere—perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech to the little birds. I want to tell you how good it makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces assembled in a place like this, learning to do right and be good.” And so forth and so on.
11
went to learn ‘his verses’ – пошел учить стихи (в Библии – группа слов из текста главы, имеющих полный смысл)