马克吐温 Mark Twain, 1835-1910原名萨缪尔兰亨克莱门(Samuel Langhorne Clemens,美国幽默大师、小说家、作家,也是著名演说家,19世纪后期美国现实主义文学的杰出代表。
目錄:
CONTENTS
Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Mark Twain
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
Explanatory Notes?? ?
內容試閱:
CHAPTER I
Tom!
No answer.
Tom!
No answer.
Whats 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 throughthem for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for style, not serviceshe could have seen through a pair of stove lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, notfiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:
Well, I lay if I get hold of you Ill
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-uTom!
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 dont know, aunt.
Well, Iknow. Its jamthats what it is. Forty times Ive said if you didnt let that jam alone Id skin you. Hand me that switch.
The switch hovered in the air the peril was desperate
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, cant I never learn anything? Aint he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Cant 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 whats 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 offfor a minute or make me laugh, its all down again and I cant hit him a lick. I aint doing my duty by that boy, and thats the Lords truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. Im a laying up sin and suffering for us both, Iknow. Hes full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! hes my own dead sisters boy, poor thing, and I aint got the heart to lash him, somehow. 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 its so. Hell play hookey this evening, and Ill just be obleeged to make him work, tomorrow, to punish him. Its 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 Ive gotto do some of my duty by him, or Ill 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 nextdays 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. Toms 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, troublesome 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 deepfor 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, warnt it?
Yesm.
Powerful warm, warnt it?
Yesm.
Didnt you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?
A bit of a scare shot through Toma touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt Pollys face, but it told him nothing. So he said:
Nomwell, not very much.
The old lady reached out her hand and felt Toms shirt, and said:
But you aint 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 mines 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 didnt 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 Toms face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.
Bother! Well, go long with you. Id made sure youd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon youre a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is bettern you look. Thistime.
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 didnt think you sewed his collar with white thread, but its 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, Ill lick you for that.
In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into the lappels of his jacket, and had thread bound about themone needle carried white thread and the other black. He said:
Shed never noticed if it hadnt been for Sid. Consound it! sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to geeminy shed stick to one or tother I cant keep the run of em. But I bet you Ill lam Sid for that. Ill learn him!
He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well thoughand loathed him.