The adventures of tom sawyer

rs about the sad event. But there was no whispering in the house; only the funereal rustling of dresses as the women gathered to their seats disturbed the silence there. None could remember when the little church had been so full before. There was finally a waiting pause, an expectant dumbness, and then Aunt Polly entered, followed by Sid and Mary, and they by the Harper family, all in deep black, and the whole congregation, the old minister as well, rose reverently and stood until the mourners were seated in the front pew. There was another communing silence, broken at intervals by muffled sobs, and then the minister spread his hands abroad and prayed. A moving hymn was sung, and the text followed: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys. The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide. The congregation became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on, till at last the whole company broke down and joined the weeping mourners in a chorus of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way to his feelings, and crying in the pulpit.
There was a rustle in the gallery, which nobody noticed; a moment later the church door creaked; the minister raised his streaming eyes above his handkerchief, and stood transfixed! First one and then another pair of eyes followed the minister`s, and then almost with one impulse the congregation rose and stared while the three dead boys came marching up the aisle, Tom in the lead, Joe next, and Huck, a ruin of drooping rags, sneaking sheepishly in the rear! They had been hid in the unused gallery listening to their own funeral sermon!
Aunt Polly, Mary, and the Harpers threw themselves upon their restored ones, smothered them with kisses and poured out thanksgivings, while poor Huck stood abashed and uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what to do or where to hide from so many unwelcoming eyes. He wavered, and started to slink away, but Tom seized him and said:
“Aunt Polly, it ain`t fair. Somebody`s got to be glad to see Huck.”
“And so they shall. I`m glad to see him, poor motherless thing!” And the loving attentions Aunt Polly lavished upon him were the one thing capable of making him more uncomfortable than he was before.
Suddenly the minister shouted at the top of his voice: “Praise God from whom all blessings flowSING!and put your hearts in it!”
And they did. Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life.
As the “sold” congregation trooped out they said they would almost be willing to be made ridiculous again to hear Old Hundred sung like that once more.
Tom got more cuffs and kisses that dayaccording to Aunt Polly`s varying moodsthan he had earned before in a year; and he hardly knew which expressed the most gratefulness to God and affection for himself.

Chapter 18.

THAT was Tom`s great secretthe scheme to return home with his brother pirates and attend their own funerals. They had paddled over to the Missouri shore on a log, at dusk on Saturday, landing five or six miles below the village; they had slept in the woods at the edge of the town till nearly daylight, and had then crept through back lanes and alleys and finished their sleep in the gallery of the church among a chaos of invalided benches.
At breakfast, Monday morning, Aunt Polly and Mary were very loving to Tom, and very attentive to his wants. There was an unusual amount of talk. In the course of it Aunt Polly said:
“Well, I don`t say it wasn`t a fine joke, Tom, to keep everybody suffering `most a week so you boys had a good time, but it is a pity you could be so hard-hearted as to let me suffer so. If you could come over on a log to go to your funeral, you could have come over and give me a hint some way that you warn`t dead, but only run off.”
“Yes, you could have done that, Tom,” said Mary; “and I believe you would if you had thought of it.”
“Would you, Tom?” said Aunt Polly, her face lighting wistfully. “Say, now, would you, if you`d thought of it?”
“Iwell, I don`t know. `Twould `a` spoiled everything.”
“Tom, I hoped you loved me that much,” said Aunt Polly, with a grieved tone that discomforted the boy. “It would have been something if you`d cared enough to THINK of it, even if you didn`t DO it.”
“Now, auntie, that ain`t any harm,” pleaded Mary; “it`s only Tom`s giddy wayhe is always in such a rush that he never thinks of anything.”
“More`s the pity. Sid would have thought. And Sid would have come and DONE it, too. Tom, you`ll look back, some day, when it`s too late, and wish you`d cared a little more for me when it would have cost you so little.”
“Now, auntie, you know I do care for you,” said Tom.
“I`d know it better if you acted more like it.”
“I wish now I`d thought,” said Tom, with a repentant tone; “but I dreamt about you, anyway. That`s something, ain`t it?”
“It ain`t mucha cat does that muchbut it`s better than nothing. What did you dream?”
“Why, Wednesday night I dreamt that you was sitting over there by the bed, and Sid was sitting by the woodbox, and Mary next to him.”
“Well, so we did. So we always do. I`m glad your dreams could take even that much trouble about us.”
“And I dreamt that Joe Harper`s mother was here.”
“Why, she was here! Did you dream any more?”
“Oh, lots. But it`s so dim, now.”
“Well, try to recollectcan`t you?”
“Somehow it seems to me that the windthe wind blowed thethe”
“Try harder, Tom! The wind did blow something. Come!”
Tom pressed his fingers on his forehead an anxious minute, and then said:
“I`ve got it now! I`ve got it now! It blowed the candle!”
“Mercy on us! Go on, Tomgo on!”
“And it seems to me that you said, `Why, I believe that that door`”
“Go ON, Tom!”
“Just let me study a momentjust a moment. Oh, yesyou said you believed the door was open.”
“As I`m sitting here, I did! Didn`t I, Mary! Go on!”
“And thenand thenwell I won`t be certain, but it seems like as if you made Sid go andand”
“Well? Well? What did I make him do, Tom? What did I make him do?”
“You made himyouOh, you made him shut it.”
“Well, for the land`s sake! I never heard the beat of that in all my days! Don`t tell ME there ain`t anything in dreams, any more. Sereny Harper shall know of this before I`m an hour older. I`d like to see her get around THIS with her rubbage `bout superstition. Go on, Tom!”
“Oh, it`s all getting just as bright as day, now. Next you said I warn`t BAD, only mischeevous and harum-scarum, and not any more responsible thanthanI think it was a colt, or something.”
“And so it was! Well, goodness gracious! Go on, Tom!”
“And then you began to cry.”
“So I did. So I did. Not the first time, neither. And then”
“Then Mrs. Harper she began to cry, and said Joe was just the same, and she wished she hadn`t whipped him for taking cream when she`d throwed it out her own self”
“Tom! The sperrit was upon you! You was a prophesyingthat`s what you was doing! Land alive, go on, Tom!”
“Then Sid he saidhe said”
“I don`t think I said anything,” said Sid.
“Yes you did, Sid,” said Mary.
“Shut your heads and let Tom go on! What did he say, Tom?”
“He saidI THINK he said he hoped I was better off where I was gone to, but if I`d been better sometimes”
“THERE, d`you hear that! It was his very words!”
“And you shut him up sharp.”
“I lay I did! There must `a` been an angel there. There WAS an angel there, somewheres!”
“And Mrs. Harper told about Joe scaring her with a firecracker, and you told about Peter and the Painkiller”
“Just as true as I live!”
“And then there was a whole lot of talk `bout dragging the river for us, and `bout having the funeral Sunday, and then you and old Miss Harper hugged and cried, and she went.”
“It happened just so! It happened just so, as sure as I`m a-sitting in these very tracks. Tom, you couldn`t told it more like if you`d `a` seen it! And then what? Go on, Tom!”
“Then I thought you prayed for meand I could see you and hear every word you said. And you went to bed, and I was so sorry that I took and wrote on a piece of sycamore bark, `We ain`t deadwe are only off being pirates,` and put it on the table by the candle; and then you looked so good, laying there asleep, that I thought I went and leaned over and kissed you on the lips.”
“Did you, Tom, DID you! I just forgive you everything for that!” And she seized the boy in a crushing embrace that made him feel like the guiltiest of villains.
“It was very kind, even though it was only adream,” Sid soliloquized just audibly.
“Shut up, Sid! A body does just the same in a dream as he`d do if he was awake. Here`s a big Milum apple I`ve been saving for you, Tom, if you was ever found againnow go `long to school. I`m thankful to the good God and Father of us all I`ve got you back, that`s long-suffering and merciful to them that believe on Him and keep His word, though goodness knows I`m unworthy of it, but if only the worthy ones got His blessings and had His hand to help them over the rough places, there`s few enough would smile here or ever enter into His rest when the long night comes. Go `long Sid, Mary, Tomtake yourselves offyou`ve hendered me long enough.”
The children left for school, and the old lady to call on Mrs. Harper and vanquish her realism with Tom`s marvello…