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aCTIVITy 4.8
continued
elements of Humor: Comic situations
white alley: a kind of marble
straitened: characterized by poverty
my Notes
work in Tom’s eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour—and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:
Chunk 3
3 “Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.”
4 Jim shook his head and said:
5 “Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’ not stop
foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec’ Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ’long an’ ’tend to my own business—she ’lowed SHE’D ’tend to de whitewashin’.”
6 “Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket—I won’t be gone only a minute. SHE won’t ever know.”
7 “Oh, I dasn’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off ’n me. ’Deed she would.”
8 “SHE! She never licks anybody—whacks ’em over the head with her thimble—and
who cares for that, I’d like to know. She talks awful, but talk don’t hurt—anyways it don’t if she don’t cry. Jim, I’ll give you a marvel. I’ll give you a white alley!”
9 Jim began to waver.
10 “White alley, Jim! And it’s a bully taw.”
11 “My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I’s powerful ’fraid ole
missis—”
12 “And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.”
13 Jim was only human—this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail,
took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.
14 But Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of WORK, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.
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15 He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight
presently—the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben’s gait was the hop-skip-and-jump—proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance—
Word CoNNeCTIoNs
Word Relationships
The words “great” and “magnificent” may seem similar; however, Twain uses magnificent to mean “splendid; impressive,” while great, in this context, means important. Twain uses both words to inform the reader that a pivotal change is about to occur in the story because of Tom’s idea.
290 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 8
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