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 Tom Sawyer – Part
Seventy-two
Before you read the text, read the following comprehension questions.
Now read the text and answer the questions.
They arrived hot and sweating, and threw
themselves down in the shade of a nearby tree to rest and have a smoke.
"I like this," said Tom.
"So do I."
"Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your share?"
"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every circus
that I can. I'll have a wonderful time."
"Aren’t you going to save any of it?"
"Save it? What for?"
"To have something to live on in the future."
"Oh, there’s no point. My dad would come back to town some day and get his hands
on it if I didn't spend it quickly. He’d soon spend it. What you going to do
with yours, Tom?"
"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a new sword, and a red tie and a puppy and get
married."
"Married!"
"Yep."
"Tom, you’re crazy!"
"Wait, you'll see."
"Well, that's the most stupid thing you could do. Look at my mum and dad. They
used to fight all the time. I remember it very well"
"I’m not worried. The girl I'm going to marry won't fight."
"Tom, I reckon they're all the same. You’d better think about this a long time.
What's the name of the girl?"
"I'll tell you some time, but not now."
"All right. But if you get married, I'll be lonelier than ever."
"No, you won't. You'll come and live with me. Come on, let’s go digging."
They worked and sweated for half an hour. No result. They dug another half-hour.
Still no result.
Huck said: "Do they always bury it as deep as this?"
"Sometimes. Not always. Not generally. I reckon we haven't got the right place."
So they chose a new spot and began again. The work was hard, but still they made
progress. They dug in silence for a long time.
Finally, Huck leaned on his shovel, wiped away the sweat from his forehead with
his sleeve, and said: "Where you going to dig next, after we’ve finished here?"
"I think maybe we'll try the old tree that's over on Cardiff Hill behind the
widow's house."
"I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the widow take it away from us, Tom?
It's on her land."
"She can try! Whoever finds one of these hidden treasures, it belongs to him. It
doesn’t make any difference whose land it's on."
That was satisfactory. The work went on. Soon, Huck said:
"We must be in the wrong place again. What do you think?"
"It is very unusual, Huck. I don't understand it. Sometimes witches interfere.
I reckon maybe that's what the trouble is now."
"Hang on! Witches haven’t got any power during the day."
"That’s true. I didn't think of that. Oh, I know what the problem is! We’re such
idiots!
You’ve got to find out where the shadows are at midnight, and that's where you
dig!"
"Then, we’ve done all this work for nothing. Now hang it all, we got to come
back in during the night. It's a very long way. Can you get out?"
"I bet I will. We've got to do it tonight, too, because if somebody sees these
holes, they'll know in a minute what's here and they'll find the treasure."
"Well, I'll come round and get you tonight."
"All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes."
... to be continued!
* The text has been adapted from the Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
Download the
original book for free
*Consulta
un PDF con la información y resumen de 100 libros en inglés
que puedes descargar en 1 único archivo.
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Now read the text and answer the questions.
The boys went back that night. They sat in the
shadow waiting.
It was a lonely place, and an hour seems much longer than it actually was.
Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts hid in dark places and a dog
howled and cried in the distance.
The boys didn’t say much as they listened to these strange noises in the dark.
Eventually, they realized that it was midnight. They saw where the shadow fell,
and began to dig. They became hopeful and worked harder as their interest grew
stronger.
The hole got deeper and deeper, but every time they thought they’d found
something they were disappointed. It was only a stone or a hard piece of earth.
At last Tom said, "It’s no use, Huck, we're wrong again."
"But we can’t be wrong. We followed the instructions exactly."
"I know, but then there's something else."
"What's that?".
"We only guessed the time. Maybe it was too late or too early."
Huck dropped his shovel.
"That's it," he said. "That's the problem. We’ve got to stop this. We can't ever
tell the right time, and besides this is terrible at this time of night with
witches and ghosts all around us. I feel as if something's behind me all the
time and I'm afraid to turn around, because maybe there’s something near waiting
to get me. It’s been making me nervous ever since we got here."
"Well, I've felt the same way, too, Huck. They nearly always put a dead man when
they bury treasure under a tree, to protect it."
"Good God!"
"Yes, they do. I've heard that many times."
"Tom, I don't like to play around where there are dead people. That’s just
asking for trouble."
"I don't like to mess with them, either. Imagine if one of them stuck his skull
out and said something!"
"Shut up Tom! It's awful."
"Yes, it is. Huck, I don't feel comfortable at all."
"Hey Tom, let's leave this place, and try somewhere else."
"All right, I think we should."
"Where?"
Tom thought for a while; and then said:
"The haunted house. That's it!"
"I don't like haunted houses, Tom. They're worse than dead people. Dead people
might talk, maybe, but they don't come over to you silently when you’re not
looking and look over your shoulder the way a ghost does. I couldn't stand that,
Tom. Nobody could."
"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel around only at night. They won't disturb us
from digging there in the daytime."
"Well, that's true. But you know that people don't go to that haunted house
during the day or during the night."
"Well, that's because they don't like to go where a man's been murdered. But
nothing's ever been seen around that house except during the night; just some
blue lights in the windows. There are no normal ghosts."
"Well, where you see one of those blue lights moving around, Tom, you can be
sure there's a ghost very close behind it. It’s obvious because only ghosts use
those blue lights."
"Yes, that's true. But anyway, they don't appear during the day, so what's the
use of being afraid?"
"Well, all right. We'll go to the haunted house if you say so, but I think it's
taking chances."
They had started to walk down the hill by this time. There in the middle of the
moonlit valley below them was the "haunted" house, completely isolated, its
fences and had disappeared a long time ago. Weeds and grass covered the steps
and entrance. The roof and chimney had crumbled and a corner of the roof had
fallen in.
The boys looked at the house for a while, half expecting to see a blue light
pass a window. The boys whispered to each other as they walked around the right
side of the house, keeping a safe distance away, and continued home through the
forest that was behind the hill.
... to be continued!
* The text has been adapted from the Adventures
of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain
Download the
original book for free
*Consulta
un PDF con la información y resumen de 100 libros en inglés
que puedes descargar en 1 único archivo.
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