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Chapter XII
ONE of the reasons why Tom's mind had
drifted away from its secret troubles was,
that it had found a new and weighty matter
to interest itself about.
Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to
school.
Tom had struggled with his pride a few
days, and tried to "whistle her down the
wind," but failed.
He began to find himself hanging around
her father's house, nights, and feeling
very miserable.
She was ill.
What if she should die!
There was distraction in the thought.
He no longer took an interest in war, nor
even in piracy.
The charm of life was gone; there was
nothing but dreariness left.
He put his hoop away, and his bat; there
was no joy in them any more.
His aunt was concerned.
She began to try all manner of remedies on
him.
She was one of those people who are
infatuated with patent medicines and all
new-fangled methods of producing health or
mending it.
She was an inveterate experimenter in
these things.
When something fresh in this line came out
she was in a fever, right away, to try it;
not on herself, for she was never ailing,
but on anybody else that came handy.
She was a subscriber for all the "Health"
periodicals and phrenological frauds; and
the solemn ignorance they were inflated
with was breath to her nostrils.
All the "rot" they contained about
ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how
to get up, and what to eat, and what to
drink, and how much exercise to take, and
what frame of mind to keep one's self in,
and what sort of clothing to wear, was all
gospel to her, and she never observed that
her health-journals of the current month
customarily upset everything they had
recommended the month before.
She was as simple-hearted and honest as
the day was long, and so she was an easy
victim.
She gathered together her quack
periodicals and her quack medicines, and
thus armed with death, went about on her
pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with
"hell following after."
But she never suspected that she was not
an angel of healing and the balm of Gilead
in disguise, to the suffering neighbors.
The water treatment was new, now, and
Tom's low condition was a windfall to her.
She had him out at daylight every morning,
stood him up in the woodshed and drowned
him with a deluge of cold water; then she
scrubbed him down with a towel like a
file, and so brought him to; then she
rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him
away under blankets till she sweated his
soul clean and "the yellow stains of it
came through his pores"--as Tom said.
Yet notwithstanding all this, the boy grew
more and more melancholy and pale and
dejected.
She added hot baths, sitz baths, shower
baths, and plunges.
The boy remained as dismal as a hearse.
She began to assist the water with a slim
oatmeal diet and blister-plasters.
She calculated his capacity as she would a
jug's, and filled him up every day with
quack cure-alls.
Tom had become indifferent to persecution
by this time.
This phase filled the old lady's heart
with consternation.
This indifference must be broken up at any
cost.
Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first
time.
She ordered a lot at once.
She tasted it and was filled with
gratitude.
It was simply fire in a liquid form.
She dropped the water treatment and
everything else, and pinned her faith to
Pain-killer.
She gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched
with the deepest anxiety for the result.
Her troubles were instantly at rest, her
soul at peace again; for the
"indifference" was broken up.
The boy could not have shown a wilder,
heartier interest, if she had built a fire
under him.
Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this
sort of life might be romantic enough, in
his blighted condition, but it was getting
to have too little sentiment and too much
distracting variety about it.
So he thought over various plans for
relief, and finally hit pon that of
professing to be fond of Pain-killer.
He asked for it so often that he became a
nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling
him to help himself and quit bothering
her.
If it had been Sid, she would have had no
misgivings to alloy her delight; but since
it was Tom, she watched the bottle
clandestinely.
She found that the medicine did really
diminish, but it did not occur to her that
the boy was mending the health of a crack
in the sitting-room floor with it.
One day Tom was in the act of dosing the
crack when his aunt's yellow cat came
along, purring, eying the teaspoon
avariciously, and begging for a taste.
Tom said:
"Don't ask for it unless you want it,
Peter."
But Peter signified that he did want it.
"You better make sure."
Peter was sure.
"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it
to you, because there ain't anything mean
about me; but if you find you don't like
it, you mustn't blame anybody but your own
self."
Peter was agreeable.
So Tom pried his mouth open and poured
down the Pain-killer.
Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air,
and then delivered a war-whoop and set off
round and round the room, banging against
furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and
making general havoc.
Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced
around, in a frenzy of enjoyment, with his
head over his shoulder and his voice
proclaiming his unappeasable happiness.
Then he went tearing around the house
again spreading chaos and destruction in
his path.
Aunt Polly entered in time to see him
throw a few double summersets, deliver a
final mighty hurrah, and sail through the
open window, carrying the rest of the
flower-pots with him.
The old lady stood petrified with
astonishment, peering over her glasses;
Tom lay on the floor expiring with
laughter.
"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?"
"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy.
"Why, I never see anything like it.
What did make him act so?"
"Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly; cats
always act so when they're having a good
time."
"They do, do they?"
There was something in the tone that made
Tom apprehensive.
"Yes'm.
That is, I believe they do."
"You DO?"
"Yes'm."
The old lady was bending down, Tom
watching, with interest emphasized by
anxiety.
Too late he divined her "drift."
The handle of the telltale teaspoon was
visible under the bed-valance.
Aunt Polly took it, held it up.
Tom winced, and dropped his eyes.
Aunt Polly raised him by the usual handle-
-his ear--and cracked his head soundly
with her thimble.
"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that
poor dumb beast so, for?"
"I done it out of pity for him--because he
hadn't any aunt."
"Hadn't any aunt!--you numskull.
What has that got to do with it?"
"Heaps.
Because if he'd had one she'd a burnt him
out herself!
She'd a roasted his bowels out of him
'thout any more feeling than if he was a
human!"
Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse.
This was putting the thing in a new light;
what was cruelty to a cat MIGHT be cruelty
to a boy, too.
She began to soften; she felt sorry.
Her eyes watered a little, and she put her
hand on Tom's head and said gently:
"I was meaning for the best, Tom.
And, Tom, it DID do you good."
Tom looked up in her face with just a
perceptible twinkle peeping through his
gravity.
"I know you was meaning for the best,
aunty, and so was I with Peter.
It done HIM good, too.
I never see him get around so since--"
"Oh, go 'long with you, Tom, before you
aggravate me again.
And you try and see if you can't be a good
boy, for once, and you needn't take any
more medicine."
Tom reached school ahead of time.
It was noticed that this strange thing had
been occurring every day latterly.
And now, as usual of late, he hung about
the gate of the schoolyard instead of
playing with his comrades.
He was sick, he said, and he looked it.
He tried to seem to be looking everywhere
but whither he really was looking--down
the road.
Presently Jeff Thatcher hove in sight, and
Tom's face lighted; he gazed a moment, and
then turned sorrowfully away.
When Jeff arrived, Tom accosted him; and
"led up" warily to opportunities for
remark about Becky, but the giddy lad
never could see the bait.
Tom watched and watched, hoping whenever a
frisking frock came in sight, and hating
the owner of it as soon as he saw she was
not the right one.
At last frocks ceased to appear, and he
dropped hopelessly into the dumps; he
entered the empty schoolhouse and sat down
to suffer.
Then one more frock passed in at the gate,
and Tom's heart gave a great bound.
The next instant he was out, and "going
on" like an Indian; yelling, laughing,
chasing boys, jumping over the fence at
risk of life and limb, throwing
handsprings, standing on his head--doing
all the heroic things he could conceive
of, and keeping a furtive eye out, all the
while, to see if Becky Thatcher was
noticing.
But she seemed to be unconscious of it
all; she never looked.
Could it be possible that she was not
aware that he was there?
He carried his exploits to her immediate
vicinity; came war-whooping around,
snatched a boy's cap, hurled it to the
roof of the schoolhouse, broke through a
group of boys, tumbling them in every
direction, and fell sprawling, himself,
under Becky's nose, almost upsetting her--
and she turned, with her nose in the air,
and he heard her say: "Mf!
some people think they're mighty smart--
always showing off!"
Tom's cheeks burned.
He gathered himself up and sneaked off,
crushed and crestfallen.