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.

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-andjump-proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipation high. He was eating an apple and giving a long, melodious whoop at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong, dingdong-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, for he was personating the Big Missouri and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane deck, giving the orders, and executing them.

"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk.

"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides.

"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!" His right hand, meantime, described stately circles, for it was representing a forty-foot wheel.

"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chowch-chow-chow!" The left hand began to describe circles.

"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! Lively now! Come out with your spring-line — what're you about there? Take a turn around that stump with

the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now - let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! Sh't! Sh't! Sh't!" (trying the gauge cocks).

Tom went on whitewashing - paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said:

"Hi-yi! You're up a stump, ain't you?"

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist; then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said: "Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?" Tom wheeled suddenly and said: "Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing." "Say I'm going in a-swimming, I am. you could? But of course you'd druther work Course you would!"

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: "What do you call work?"

"Why, ain't that work?"

Don't you wish

wouldn't you?

Tom resumed his whitewashing and answered carelessly: "Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, 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, criticized 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 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 him; Sid wanted to do it, and 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

"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 afeard -"

"I'll give you all of it!"

Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material. 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, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had, besides the things before 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 firecrackers, 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 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.

This story is taken from one of the best-known books in the world, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, whose real name was Samuel L. Clemens. The whitewashing of the fence is but one of many incidents in which Tom plays the leading part. One of Tom's chums was Huckleberry Finn, and Mark Twain has written his story in a book called by his name. Every boy and girl will wish to read both of these books and to share in the interesting and exciting adventures of these two boys. Besides the good fun one has in reading the books, one also learns a great deal about how people lived in the early days of the settlement of the Mississippi valley. 1. Why do Tom's thoughts wander to the town pump and away from the fence?

2. Tom lives with his Aunt Polly. How does Tom's way of thinking of her differ from Jim's?

3. About how old is Tom?

4. Tom lived near the Mississippi in the days when there were no railroads and very few good wagon roads. The steamboat was the chief means of fast travel and of shipping. The big boats were the most interesting things the boys ever saw and whole villages were accustomed to go down to the wharf when one pulled up to land its cargo. What do you think of Ben's imitation of the landing of the boat?

5. Why did Tom get interested in whitewashing when Ben came along? 6. Can you imagine Tom living in your community? What would he be doing?

7. The following words are descriptive of human traits. Copy in your notebook those that describe Tom Sawyer. Can you add to the list? (1) proud, (2) courageous, (3) ambitious, (4) clever, (5) sociable.

LITTLE WOMEN 1

LOUISA M. ALCOTT

"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug. Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.

"Don't, Jo; it's so boyish!"

"That's why I do it."

"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"

"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"

"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the "pecking" ended for that time.

"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were a little girl; but now when you are so tall and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady."

"I'm not! and if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net and shaking down a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China aster! It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman!" And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets and her ball bounded across the room.

1 From Louisa M. Alcott's Little Women, copyrighted by Little, Brown and Company. Used by permission of the publishers.