Adventures of Pinocchio | Page 5

would."
"SHE! She never licks anybody--whacks 'em over the head with her thimble--and who
cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but talk don't hurt--anyways it don't if she
don't cry. Jim, I'll give you a marvel. I'll give you a white alley!"
Jim began to waver.
"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw."

"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I's powerful 'fraid ole
missis--"
"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe."
Jim was only human--this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the
white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being
unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling
rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a
slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.
But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day,
and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of
delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work--the
very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it--bits
of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half
enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened
means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and
hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent
inspiration.
He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight
presently--the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was
the hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high.
He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a
deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he
drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard
and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance--for he was
personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water.
He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself
standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them:
"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly
toward the sidewalk.
"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.
"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!" His
right hand, meantime, describing stately circles--for it was representing a forty-foot
wheel.
"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-lingling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!" The left hand
began to describe circles.
"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard!
Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a- ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that
head-line! LIVELY now! Come--out with your spring-line--what're you about there!
Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now--let her go!

Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!" (trying the
gauge-cocks).
Tom went on whitewashing--paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and
then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"
No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush
another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him.
Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:
"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 carelessly:
"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