Приключения Тома Сойера / The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

So he said:

�No’m – well, not very much.’

The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom’s shirt, and said:

�But you ain’t 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 – mine’s damp yet. See?’

Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick.

�Tom, you didn’t 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 Tom’s face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.

�Bother! Well, go ’long with you. I’d made sure you’d played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you’re a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is – better’n you look.

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 didn’t think you sewed his collar with white thread, but it’s 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, I’ll lick you for that.’

In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them – one needle carried white thread and the other black.

�She’d never noticed if it hadn’t been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to geeminy she’d stick to one or t’other – I can’t keep the run of ’em. But I bet you I’ll lam Sid for that. I’ll learn him!’

He was not the Model Boy of the village.

Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man’s are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time – just as men’s misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises.