The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Puffin Classics)

Product Description They're Puffin Classics for a reason, it's because they're the bestTom Sawyer is sure to find trouble wherever the river leads him . . . On the banks of the Mississippi River, Tom Sawyer and his friends seek out adventure at every turn. Then one fateful night in the graveyard they witness a murder. The boys make a blood oath never to reveal the secret, and they run away to be pirates in search of hidden treasure. But when Tom gets trapped in a cave with scary Injun Joe, can he escape unharmed? Review “A sacred text within the body of American literature.”—Frank Conroy About the Author Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910). He was born in Missouri, USA. He travelled around America, seeking fame and fortune before becoming a successful journalist and travel writer. In 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, inspired by his own childhood, was published, followed eight years later by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1"Tom!"No answer."Tom!"No answer."What's 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 through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service;-she could have seen through a pair of stove lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll-"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-u Tom!"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 don't know, aunt.""Well I know. It's jam-that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone I'd 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 around, 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, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for himby this time? But old fools isthe biggest fools there is. Can't 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 what's 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 off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says. I'm a-laying up sin and suffering for us both, I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't 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 it's so. He'll play hookey this eve