Page 147 - the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer

Chapter XVII

UT there was no hilarity in the little town that same
Btranquil Saturday afternoon. The Harpers, and Aunt
Polly’s family, were being put into mourning, with great
grief and many tears. An unusual quiet possessed the village,
although it was ordinarily quiet enough, in all conscience.
The villagers conducted their concerns with an absent air,
and talked little; but they sighed often. The Saturday holi-
day seemed a burden to the children. They had no heart in
their sports, and gradually gave them up.
In the afternoon Becky Thatcher found herself moping
about the deserted schoolhouse yard, and feeling very mel-
ancholy. But she found nothing there to comfort her. She
soliloquized:
‘Oh, if I only had a brass andiron-knob again! But I
haven’t got anything now to remember him by.’ And she
choked back a little sob.
Presently she stopped, and said to herself:
‘It was right here. Oh, if it was to do over again, I wouldn’t
say that — I wouldn’t say it for the whole world. But he’s
gone now; I’ll never, never, never see him any more.’
This thought broke her down, and she wandered away,
with tears rolling down her cheeks. Then quite a group of
boys and girls — playmates of Tom’s and Joe’s — came by,
and stood looking over the paling fence and talking in rev-

1 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer