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- 653
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-28T17:35:34.174Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 575
- text
- 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 adventurous, trouble-some ways.
While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity
offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and
very deep—for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like
many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she
was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she
loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low
cunning. Said she:
“Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn’t it?”
“Yes’m.”
“Powerful warm, warn’t it?”
“Yes’m.”
“Didn’t you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?”
A bit of a scare shot through Tom—a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He
searched Aunt Polly’s face, but it told him nothing. So he said:
“No’m—well, not very much.”
The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom’s shirt, and said:
“But you ain’t too warm now, though.” And it flattered her to reflect
that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing
that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew
where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move:
“Some of us pumped on our heads—mine’s damp yet. See?”
Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of
circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new
inspiration:
“Tom, you didn’t have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to
pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!”
The trouble vanished out of Tom’s face. He opened his jacket. His shirt
collar was securely sewed.
“Bother! Well, go ’long with you. I’d made sure you’d played hookey
and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you’re a kind of a
singed cat, as the saying is—better’n you look. _This_ time.”
She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom
had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.
But Sidney said:
“Well, now, if I didn’t think you sewed his collar with white thread,
but it’s black.”
“Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!”
But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:
“Siddy, I’ll lick you for that.”
In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into
the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them—one needle
carried white thread and the other black. He said:
“She’d never noticed if it hadn’t been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes
she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to
gee-miny she’d stick to one or t’other—I can’t keep the run of ’em. But
I bet you I’ll lam Sid for that. I’ll learn him!”
He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well
though—and loathed him.
- title
- Chunk 2