Mark Twain
Published: 2017-09-22
Total Pages: 24
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"Tom!" That's how it begins.Old Aunt Polly is looking for her rascal of a nephew, Tom Sawyer, but he can't be found.She looks inside and out before finding in snooping around in the closet. He's caught red-handed and, uh, red-mouthed. He's been stealing jam from the pantry.Tom, ever the clever one, pulls the old "Look out behind you!" trick and it works.He hops over a fence while Aunt Polly curses herself for falling for such a stupid ploy.After playing hooky all day, Tom helps Jim, a young slave, chop wood. Well, Tom mostly talks about his adventures, while his annoying, well-mannered half-brother Sid does his chores. The Jim mentioned here is not, it should be noted, the same Jim that appears in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Over dinner, Aunt Polly interrogates Tom - she has a feeling he didn't go to school - but he manages to evade all her questions while also stealing sugar from the sugar bowl.Sid tattles on Tom, but not before Tom can make his way out the door.He leaves the house, whistling away his troubles, until he happens on a well-dressed boy - a "too well-dressed" boy in the street.The two stare each other down, Old West style before they start arguing about who could lick who and who's a liar and my brother can beat up your brother and all that stuff. Then they finally put their money where their mouths are and start fighting.Tom comes out on top, but ends up chasing the boy home after the sore loser hits him with a stone while his back is turned.Tom attempts to sneak through a window, but he's ambushed by Aunt Polly, who decides that he will definitely not be having fun the next day, Saturday.