PREFACE
MOST of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or
two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were
schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but
not from an individual -- he is a combina- tion of the characteristics of
three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of
archi- tecture.
The odd superstitions touched upon were all preva- lent among
children and slaves in the West at the period of this story -- that is to say,
thirty or forty years ago.
Although my book is intended mainly for the en- tertainment of boys
and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account,
for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they
once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and
what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in.
THE AUTHOR.
HARTFORD, 1876.


CHAPTER I
"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about
the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or
never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were
her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service
-- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked
perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough
for the furniture to hear:
"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll --"
She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and
punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to
punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.
"I never did see the beat of that boy!"
She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the
tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom.
So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:
"Y-o-u-u TOM!"
There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize
a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.
"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in
there?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that
truck?"
"I don't know, aunt."
"Well, I know. It's jam -- that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you
didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch."

The switch hovered in the air -- the peril was des- perate --
"My! Look behind you, aunt!"
The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. The
lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and
disappeared over it.
His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle
laugh.
"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks
enough like that for me to be look- ing out for him by this time? But old
fools is the big- gest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, as
the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, and
how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long he
can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make
out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I
can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's
truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good
Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full
of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor
thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, some- how. Every time I let him
off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart
most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and
full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey
this evening, * and [* Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll just be obleeged
to make him work, to-morrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make
him work Saturdays, when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates
work more than he hates anything else, and I've GOT to do some of my
duty by him, or I'll be the ruination of the child."
Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home
barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's wood
and split the kindlings before supper -- at least he was there in time to tell
his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom's
younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already through with his
part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, and had no ...

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