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"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"
Tom wheeled suddenly and said:
"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."
"Say -- I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't
you wish you could? But of course you'd druther
WORK -- wouldn't you? Course you would!"
Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:
"What do you call work?"
"Why, ain't THAT work?"
Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered care-
lessly:
"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know,
is, it suits Tom Sawyer."
"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you
LIKE it?"
The brush continued to move.
"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it.
Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped
nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily
back and forth -- stepped back to note the effect --
added a touch here and there -- criticised the effect
again -- Ben watching every move and getting more
and more interested, more and more absorbed. Pres-
ently he said:
"Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little."
Tom considered, was about to consent; but he
altered his mind:
"No -- no -- I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben.
You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this
fence -- right here on the street, you know -- but if it
was the back fence I wouldn't mind and SHE wouldn't.
Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to
be done very careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a
thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way
it's got to be done."
"No -- is that so? Oh come, now -- lemme just
try. Only just a little -- I'd let YOU, if you was me,
Tom."
"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly
-- well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him;
Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now
don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this
fence and anything was to happen to it --"
"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try.
Say -- I'll give you the core of my apple."
"Well, here -- No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard --"
"I'll give you ALL of it!"
Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face,
but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer
Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the
retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by,
dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the
slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack
of material; boys happened along every little while;
they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By
the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next
chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and
when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a
dead rat and a string to swing it with -- and so on, and
so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the
afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken
boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.
He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve
marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass
to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't
unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper
of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six
fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-
knob, a dog-collar -- but no dog -- the handle of a knife,
four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window
sash.
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