TOM SAWYER'S DISCOVERY IN HUMAN NATURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 185, 13 October 1876, Page 13

TOM SAWYER'S DISCOVERY IN HUMAN NATURE.

If abe Twain, in his new book, tells the following story : — Tom Sawyer, having offended his sole guardian, Aunt Polly, is by that sternly affectionate dame, punished by beinjr set to whitewash the fence in front of the garden. The world seemed a hollow mockery to Tom, who had planned fun for that day, and who knew lie would be the laughing-stock of all the boys as they came past and saw him set to work like a " nigger." But a great inspiration burst in upon him, and he went tranquilly to work. What that inspiration was, will appear from what follows. One of the boys, Ben Rogers, comes by and pauses, eating a particularly fine apple. Tom does not see him. Ben stared a moment, and then said — " Hi-yi ! You're are up a stump, ain't you ? " No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave another gentle sweep, and surveyed the result as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered £or the apple, but he stuck to his work, Ben said — " Hello, old chap. You've got to work, hey ? " " Why, it's you, Ben. I wasn't noticing ! " " Say, I'm going in a*swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could ! But, of course, you'd druther work, wouldn't you ? 'Course you would ! " Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said — " What do you call work ? " ♦• Why, ain't that work ? " Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered, carelessly — " Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I knows is, it suits Tom Sawyer." " Oh, come now, you don't mean to let on that you like it ? " The brush continued to move. " Like it ? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day ? " That put the thing in a new light' Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth; stepped back to note the effect ; added a touch, here and there ; criticised the effect again, Ben watching every move, and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said — " Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little." Tom considered, was about to consent, but he altered his mind. "No, no, I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence — right here on the street, you know — but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence. It's got to be done very careful. I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it in the way it's got to be done." " No — is that so ? Oh, come, now; lemme just try, only just a little. I'd let you, if you was me, Tom." " Ben, I'd like to, honest injun ; but Aunt Polly — well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let Mm. Sid wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let Sid. Now, don't you see how I'm fixed ? If you was to tackle this fence, and anything was to happen to it" — " Oh, shucks ! I'll be just as careful. Now, lemme try. Say — I'll give you the core of my apple." "Well, here. No, Ben ; now don't ! I'm af eared" — " I'll give you all of it ! " Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in bis heart j and while Ben worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangling his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material j boys happened along every little while ; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair ; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with ; and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, besides the things I have mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a Jew's-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass-stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar — but no dog — the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window-sash. He had a nice, good, idle time all the while — plenty of company — and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it ! If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action without knowittg it : namely, that, in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, vfis only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a treadmill is work, while rolling nine-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money ; but, if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign.