Tom Sawyer – Part Thirty-eight

Before you read the text, read the following comprehension questions.

1. What was Tom doing at night that prevented Sid from sleeping?

2. Apart from Tom, which other two people were having their sleep affected by the murder?

3. How did Tom try to stop himself talking in his sleep’?

4. What were Tom’s schoolmates doing that reminded him of the murder??

5. What did Tom do to ease his conscience?

Now read the text and answer the questions.

Tom's fearful secret and conscience disturbed his sleep for as much as a week. At breakfast one morning Sid said,

"Tom, you move around and talk in your sleep so much that you keep me awake half the time."

Tom looked down and said nothing.

"It's a bad sign," said Aunt Polly, seriously. "What have you got on your mind, Tom?"

"Nothing. Nothing that I know of." But the boy's hand shook and he spilled his coffee.

"And you talk in your sleep a lot," Sid said. "Last night you said, 'It's blood, it's blood, that's what it is!' You said that over and over again. And you said,

'Don't torment me. I'll tell!' Tell what? What is it you'll tell?"

Everything was swimming before Tom. There is no knowing what might have happened, now, but luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly's face and she came to Tom's relief without knowing it. She said,

"It's that dreadful murder. I dream about it almost every night myself. Sometimes I dream it's me who did it."

Mary said she had been affected the same way. Sid seemed satisfied. Tom got out of there as quickly as he could, and after that he complained of a toothache for a week, and tied up his mouth every night.

He didn’t know that Sid was watching him every night, and frequently took the bandage off and listened for a long time, and afterward put the bandage back to its place again.

Tom's distress disappeared gradually and the toothache became annoying and was forgotten about.

If Sid really did manage to understand anything from what Tom was saying in his sleep, he kept it to himself.

It seemed to Tom that his schoolmates would never stop asking about dead cats, and therefore keeping his trouble always on mind.

Sid noticed that Tom never was coroner at one of these inquiries, though it had been his habit to take the lead in all new enterprises.

He noticed, too, that Tom never acted as a witness, and that was strange.Diccionario online

Sid did also not overlook the fact that Tom didn’t even like these inquests, and always avoided them when he could.

Sid was amazed, but he said nothing.

However, even inquests went out of fashion eventually, and stopped torturing Tom's conscience.

Every day or two, during this time of sadness, Tom took every chance to go to the jail and push small comforts through the small jail-window to the "murderer".

The jail was a little brick building that stood at the end of the village, and no guards were there because it was seldom occupied.

Passing these offerings to the prisoner greatly helped to ease Tom's conscience.

The villagers had a strong desire to punish Injun Joe for body-snatching, but so formidable was his character that nobody could be found who was willing to take the lead in the matter, so it was dropped.

He had been careful to begin both of his inquest-statements with the fight, without confessing the grave-robbery that preceded it. So, it was decided not to hear the case in the courts at present.

... to be continued!

* The text has been adapted from the Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain


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Tom Sawyer – Part Thirty-nine

Before you read the text, read the following comprehension questions.
 

1. What was distracting Tom from his normal life?

2. Why didn’t Aunt Polly try her medicines and miracle cures on herself?

3. How do we know from the text that the health magazines Aunt Polly read probably contained unreliable information’?

4. What popular, current treatment did Aunt Polly try with Tom first?

5. What remedy finally cured Tom of his ‘sickness’?
   

Now read the text and answer the questions.
 
One of the reasons why Tom's mind had moved away from its secret troubles was that it had found a new and serous subject to interest itself with.

Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to school.

Tom had struggled with his pride a few days, and tried to forget her, but failed. He found himself hanging around her father's house at night and feeling very miserable.

She was ill. What if she died! The thought bothered him. He no longer took an interest in war, nor even in piracy.

The charm of life was gone. There was nothing but sadness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat, there was no joy in them anymore.

His aunt was concerned. She began to try all kinds of solutions on him.

She was one of those people who was fascinated by medicines and all new methods of producing health or improving it.

She experimented in these things. When something new came out she was impatient to try it. Not on herself, because she was never sick, but on anybody else that was in need.

She was a subscriber for all the "Health" frauds and scams. All the rubbish 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 attitude to have, and what sort of clothing to wear, all seemed true to her, and she never realized that her health journals of the current month usually said something completely different to what they had recommended the month before.

She was very simple-hearted and honest, and so she was an easy victim.

She shared the information of her ridiculous magazines and her silly medicines, and spread the word to her suffering neighbours, never suspecting that she might be talking rubbish.

Water treatment was currently in fashion, and Tom's low condition was a great opportunity for her. She had him outside every morning, made him stand up in the woodshed and drowned him with buckets of cold water. Then she dried him with a hard towel and rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him under blankets until he sweated his soul clean!Diccionario online

Despite all this, the boy grew more and more unhappy and pale and dejected. She added hot baths, shower baths and jumping into cold water. The boy remained as sad as a funeral.

She began to add oatmeal to his diet and filled him with her ‘miracle’ cures.

Tom had become indifferent to persecution by this time. This bothered the old lady. This indifference must be broken up at any cost.

She heard of pain-killer for the first time and ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid form.

She stopped the water treatment and everything else, and put all her faith in pain-killer. She gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with deep anxiety for the result.

Her troubles were instantly at rest and her soul was at peace again because the "indifference" stopped. The boy could not have been more alive if she had built a fire under him.

... 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.

 

  Haz click para comprobar las soluciones

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