Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
"That's the name they lick me by.
I'm Tom when I'm good.
You call me Tom, will you?"
"Yes."
Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from the girl.
But she was not backward this time. She begged to see.
Tom said:
"Oh, it ain't anything."
"Yes it is."
"No it ain't.
You don't want to see."
"Yes I do, indeed I do.
Please let me."
"You'll tell."
"No I won't--deed and deed and double deed won't."
"You won't tell anybody at all?
Ever, as long as you live?"
"No, I won't ever tell ANYbody.
Now let me."
"Oh, YOU don't want to see!"
"Now that you treat me so, I WILL see."
And she put her small hand upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were revealed:
"I LOVE YOU." "Oh, you bad thing!"
And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened and looked pleased, nevertheless.
Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his ear, and a steady lifting impulse.
In that wise he was borne across the house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles from the whole school.
Then the master stood over him during a few awful moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a word.
But although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant.
As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but the turmoil within him was too great.
In turn he took his place in the reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and got "turned down," by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with ostentation for months.
CHAPTER VII
THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas wandered.
So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up.
It seemed to him that the noon recess would never come.
The air was utterly dead.
There was not a breath stirring.
It was the sleepiest of sleepy days.
The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees.
Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep.
Tom's heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time.
His hand wandered into his pocket and his face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it.
Then furtively the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put him on the long flat desk.
The creature probably glowed with a gratitude that amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it was premature: for when he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned him aside with a pin and made him take a new direction.
Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in an instant.
This bosom friend was Joe Harper.
The two boys were sworn friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays.
Joe took a pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner.
The sport grew in interest momently.
Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick.