"Why, that, you know, is to--well, they always do that."
"Everybody?"
"Why, yes, everybody that"s in love with each other. Do you remember what I wrote on the slate?"
"Ye--yes."
"What was it?"
"I sha"n"t tell you."
"Shall I tell _you_?"
"Ye--yes--but some other time."
"No, now."
"No, not now--to-morrow."
"Oh, no, _now_. Please, Becky--I"ll whisper it, I"ll whisper it ever so easy."
Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and pa.s.sed his arm about her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth close to her ear. And then he added:
"Now you whisper it to me--just the same."
She resisted, for a while, and then said:
"You turn your face away so you can"t see, and then I will. But you mustn"t ever tell anybody--_will_ you, Tom? Now you won"t, _will_ you?"
"No, indeed, indeed I won"t. Now, Becky."
He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath stirred his curls and whispered, "I--love--you!"
Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches, with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little white ap.r.o.n to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded:
"Now, Becky, it"s all done--all over but the kiss. Don"t you be afraid of that--it ain"t anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her ap.r.o.n and the hands.
By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and said:
"Now it"s all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain"t ever to love anybody but me, and you ain"t ever to marry anybody but me, ever never and forever. Will you?"
"No, I"ll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I"ll never marry anybody but you--and you ain"t to ever marry anybody but me, either."
"Certainly. Of course. That"s _part_ of it. And always coming to school or when we"re going home, you"re to walk with me, when there ain"t anybody looking--and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because that"s the way you do when you"re engaged."
"It"s so nice. I never heard of it before."
"Oh, it"s ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence--"
The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused.
"Oh, Tom! Then I ain"t the first you"ve ever been engaged to!"
The child began to cry. Tom said:
"Oh, don"t cry, Becky, I don"t care for her any more."
"Yes, you do, Tom--you know you do."
Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping she would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began to feel badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle with him to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and entered. She was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with her face to the wall. Tom"s heart smote him. He went to her and stood a moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly:
"Becky, I--I don"t care for anybody but you."
No reply--but sobs.
"Becky"--pleadingly. "Becky, won"t you say something?"
More sobs.
Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a bra.s.s k.n.o.b from the top of an andiron, and pa.s.sed it around her so that she could see it, and said:
"Please, Becky, won"t you take it?"
She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called:
"Tom! Come back, Tom!"
She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about her to exchange sorrows with.
CHAPTER VIII
TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superst.i.tion that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff Hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in the valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak.
There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a wood-p.e.c.k.e.r, and this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the more profound. The boy"s soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings were in happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy Hodges, so lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through the trees and caressing the gra.s.s and the flowers over the grave, and nothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more. If he only had a clean Sunday-school record he could be willing to go, and be done with it all. Now as to this girl. What had he done? Nothing. He had meant the best in the world, and been treated like a dog--like a very dog. She would be sorry some day--maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die _temporarily_!
But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away--ever so far away, into unknown countries beyond the seas--and never came back any more! How would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and ill.u.s.trious.
No--better still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the Far West, and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeb.a.l.l.s of all his companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was something gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it!
_now_ his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor. How his name would fill the world, and make people shudder!
How gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, black-hulled racer, the Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying at the fore! And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutla.s.s at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, "It"s Tom Sawyer the Pirate!--the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main!"
Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore he must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources together.
He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively:
"What hasn"t come here, come! What"s here, stay here!"
Then he sc.r.a.ped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom"s astonishment was bound-less!