Saturday morning arrived, and all the summer world was bright and fresh and brimming with life.
If you had stood on the edge of the little town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, on that particular morning, you would have felt a song in your heart. And if your heart was young, the music would have spilled right out of your lips.
The hills beyond the town were green and inviting, capped with thick forests that seemed to whisper of secrets, caves, and hidden treasures.
The great Mississippi River, nearly a mile wide at this point, rolled its lazy, muddy water southward, shimmering like a sheet of silver under the brilliant sun.
It was a day for freedom. It was a day for kicking off your shoes, running down to the sandbar, and forgetting that there was ever such a thing as school or chores or shoes or Sunday clothes.
But as Tom Sawyer stepped out of his house and onto the dusty sidewalk, the song in his heart died a sudden, painful death.
The brightness of the morning seemed to vanish, replaced by a heavy gray cloud of despair.
In his right hand, Tom carried a long-handled brush. In his left, he dragged a large wooden bucket filled to the brim with white watery paint.
Or, as the folks in this part of the United States called it, whitewash.
Tom stopped and looked at the task before him. He did not merely look. He stared with a hollow, aching heart.
Aunt Polly's front fence was not just any fence. It was an absolute monster of a fence.
It stood nine feet high, constructed of thick, rough-hewn wooden boards, and it stretched along the dusty road for 30 yards.
30 yards! That was 90 feet of raw, unpainted wood waiting to be covered.
Tom dipped his brush into the white mixture, lifted it, and passed it along the top plank of the nearest board.
He looked at the wet white streak he had made. It was about the size of a postage stamp compared to the vast, dry continent of wood that remained.
He sat down on a tree box, let his chin sink into his chest, and groaned.
This story, which has been told and retold in dozens of ways since it was first written down by the great American writer Mark Twain in the late 19th century, is a tale of a boy, a brush, and a very long fence.
But more than that, it is a story about the strange and wonderful way our minds work. It is a story from the heart of the United States, a place of wide rivers and big dreams.
And it captures something true about every human being who has ever lived, no matter where they call home.
On this glorious Saturday, Tom was a prisoner of his own mischief. The day before, he had skipped school to go swimming in the river, and he had very nearly gotten away with it.
But his half-brother, Sid, a quiet, goody-goody boy who took great pleasure in getting Tom into trouble, had pointed out that the black thread Aunt Polly had used to sew Tom's collar shut had miraculously turned into white thread.
Tom had re-sewn it himself after swimming, but he had used the wrong color.
Aunt Polly, a stern but deeply loving woman who felt it was her Christian duty to discipline her orphaned nephew, had seen the trick.
She had declared that while other boys were enjoying their holiday, Tom would spend his Saturday working.
"I'll bend him," Aunt Polly had said to herself, "or I'll break him. It's a terrible thing to make a boy work on a Saturday, but he's got to learn."
And so, here Tom stood. The world was full of joy, but he was condemned to hard labor.
Just then, the small gate at the side of the house creaked open, and Jim, the young boy who helped Aunt Polly with the heavy chores around the house, came skipping out.
Jim was carrying a tin pail, and he was singing a lively tune. He was heading to the town pump, which was a few blocks away, to fetch water.
Now, fetching water from the town pump had always been a chore that Tom thoroughly disliked. It was hard, heavy work, and the hill back to the house was steep.
But at this moment, the town pump looked like the most wonderful place on Earth. At the pump, there were always other children.
There was always a crowd of boys and girls waiting their turn, trading playthings, resting in the shade, fighting, scuffling, and having a grand time.
Tom knew that even though Jim's chore was work, it was work surrounded by life and laughter.
"Say, Jim," Tom said, leaning against the fence and trying to look as casual as possible. "I'll fetch the water for you if you'll paint a little of this fence."
Jim shook his head immediately, holding his tin pail tight. "Oh, no, Master Tom. Old Missus, she told me I mustn't stop for nobody.
She said she expected Master Tom would ask me to whitewash, and she told me to go straight along and mind my own business. She said she'd watch me herself."
"Oh, don't you mind what she said, Jim," Tom scoffed, stepping closer. "That's just the way she talks. Give me the bucket. I'll run down and be back in a minute. She'll never know."
"Oh, I daren't, Master Tom," Jim said, his eyes wide. "Old Missus, she'd take the skin right off me, she would."
"She," Tom laughed, though there was no real mirth in it. "She never licks anybody. She hits him over the head with her thimble. And who cares for that? Nobody, I can tell you.
Jim, I'll give you a marble. I'll give you a white alley."
Jim hesitated. A white alley was a highly prized, beautiful marble made of real alabaster. It was the king of marbles.
Jim stopped skipping. He looked at the marble Tom held out between his thumb and forefinger. It was smooth, round, and gleamed in the morning sun.
"It's a dandy, Jim," Tom whispered, seeing his advantage. "A real dandy. And if you want, I'll show you my sore toe, too."
Jim was only human. The combination of a genuine alabaster marble and the rare, fascinating spectacle of a boy's injured toe was simply too much to resist.
He set his pail down on the dusty ground, bent over, and reached out to take the marble, while Tom began to unwind the bandage from his foot.
But their transaction was cut short. Suddenly, there was a rustle of skirts, and Aunt Polly herself appeared from around the corner of the house.
She was armed with a heavy slipper in her hand, and she did not hesitate. Before Jim could even touch the marble, the slipper met its mark.
Jim snatched up his bucket, let out a loud yelp, and flew down the street, his heels kicking up clouds of dust.
Aunt Polly gave Tom a sharp, warning look, nodded once, and retired from the field of battle, leaving Tom alone with his brush and his bucket.
The silence of the morning returned, heavier than before.
Farewell.
Tom was left with nothing but his thoughts, and they were very dark thoughts indeed. He began to paint again, but his heart was not in it.
He dipped the brush, slapped it against the rough wood, and watched the white liquid run down into the cracks.
He began to think of all the fun he had planned for this day. He had wanted to go down to the river to fish. He had wanted to play Robin Hood in the woods with his friends.
Now, all those plans were ruined. To make matters worse, Tom knew that in a little while, the free boys of the town would come tripping along.
They would be heading out on all kinds of delicious expeditions, and they would see him here, working like a slave.
The very thought of their mockery burned him like fire. He could already hear their laughter, see their pointing fingers, and hear their teasing voices.
Tom put his hand into his pocket and pulled out his entire earthly wealth. He wanted to see if he had enough to buy his way out of this misery.
He laid his treasures out on a flat board of the fence. There was a piece of red chalk. There was a fragment of a blue bottle glass to look through.
There were two or three marbles, not white alleys, but ordinary clay ones. There was a key that didn't unlock anything, a couple of firecrackers, a tin soldier with one leg, and a piece of string.
He looked at the little pile of junk. It was a fine collection of treasures for a boy, but it was not nearly enough to buy a replacement worker.
If he offered this to another boy, they would only laugh at him. No boy would trade a whole Saturday of freedom for a broken tin soldier and a key that opened nothing.
Tom sighed, gathered up his treasures, and put them back into his pockets. He picked up his brush again.
He felt as though he were at the bottom of a deep, dark well, and there was no way out. He was trapped, and the world was going to laugh at him.
He took a slow, heavy stroke with the brush, then another. He looked at the vast expanse of unpainted fence.
It seemed to stretch on forever, a great wooden wall designed specifically to keep him from his happiness. The sun was climbing higher, and the day was getting warmer.
The air was still, and the smell of the elder blossoms was sweet, but to Tom, it was the smell of a prison.
He sat down again on the wooden box. He was a clever boy. Everyone in St. Petersburg knew that.
He was the boy who could find his way out of almost any scrape, the boy who could think of a trick faster than anyone else.
But now, his cleverness seemed to have deserted him. He was faced with a problem that could not be solved by running away, because Aunt Polly would surely find him, and her slipper was very fast.
He closed his eyes and tried to think. He needed a miracle. He needed something that would change the very nature of the universe, or at least the nature of Saturday morning.
And then, just as the darkness of his despair was at its absolute deepest, a tiny spark of an idea flickered in his mind.
It was a small, wild, ridiculous thought. It was the kind of thought that most people would have dismissed immediately as foolishness.
But Tom Sawyer was not most people. He opened his eyes. He sat up straight. The spark of an idea grew brighter, spreading through his mind like wildfire.
He looked at the brush in his hand. He looked at the white paint in the bucket. He looked at the long, dry fence.
A slow, mischievous smile began to spread across Tom's face. It started at the corners of his mouth and crept up to his eyes, making them sparkle with a sudden, brilliant light.
"Yes," Tom whispered to himself. "Yes, it might just work."
He stood up, picked up his brush, dipped it carefully into the whitewash, and went to work.
But he did not paint with the heavy, dragging strokes of a miserable boy. He painted with a new, strange energy. He became a man with a purpose.
It was not long before the first of the free boys appeared. Down the dusty road came Ben Rogers.
Of all the boys in St. Petersburg, Ben was the one whose ridicule Tom dreaded the most. Ben was a boy who loved a joke, and he was particularly good at teasing.
As Ben walked, he was eating a large, red, juicy apple. It was a magnificent apple, the kind of apple that made your mouth water just looking at it.
Every few steps, Ben would take a huge, crunching bite, and the sweet juice would run down his chin.
But Ben was not just walking and eating an apple. He was also, in his own mind, a steamboat.
In 19th century America, the great steamboats that traveled up and down the Mississippi River were the most magnificent, powerful, and exciting things in the world.
They were like floating palaces, with tall black smokestacks, giant paddle wheels that churned the water into foam, and loud, deep whistles that could be heard for miles.
Every boy along the river dreamed of being a steamboat captain. Ben Rogers was currently impersonating the Big Missouri, one of the grandest boats on the river.
He was walking with a heavy, stomping gait, which represented the slow, powerful turning of the paddle wheels.
"Chow, chow!" Ben snorted, letting out a cloud of imaginary steam. "Chow, chow, chow!"
He drew up near the sidewalk, slowed his pace, and leaned far to starboard, rounding to in a grand, sweeping curve.
He was the captain, the engineer, and the engine, all at once. "Stopper, sir!" Ben called out to himself, his voice deep and commanding. "Ling-a-ling-a-ling!"
He stood there, panting, and began to backwater, his arms working like giant pistons. "Ship up to back! Ling-a-ling-a-ling! Chow, chow, chow, chow!"
He came to a stop right next to Tom, his eyes wide and bright with the joy of his game. He took another huge bite of his apple, looked at Tom, and smiled.
It was a smile of pure, triumphant superiority. "Hi, ye," Ben said, his mouth half full of apple. "You're up a stump, ain't ya?"
Tom did not answer. He did not even look up. He kept his eyes fixed on the fence. He took a slow, delicate stroke with his brush, then stepped back a pace to admire the effect.
He put his head on one side, like an artist examining a masterpiece. And then added another tiny touch of white to a spot he had missed.
Ben stared at him for a moment, surprised that Tom wasn't immediately complaining or trying to run away. He walked closer, still crunching his apple.
"Say, Tom," Ben said, tapping him on the shoulder. "You got to work today, huh?"
Tom turned slowly. He looked at Ben as if he had only just noticed he was there. He stared at the apple in Ben's hand, then looked back at the fence.
"Why, it's you, Ben," Tom said, his voice full of surprise. "I wasn't noticing you."
"Say, Tom," Ben repeated, a grin spreading across his face. "I'm going in a swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course, you'd rather work, wouldn't you? Of course you would."
Tom looked at Ben for a long, quiet moment. He did not look angry. He did not look sad. Instead, he looked slightly puzzled, as if Ben had said something very strange indeed.
"What do you call work?" Tom asked quietly. Ben laughed out loud. "Why, ain't that work?"
Tom resumed his painting, his movements smooth and practiced. "Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't," he said, his voice light and casual.
"All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer."
Ben stopped laughing. He stared at Tom, his apple frozen halfway to his mouth. "Oh, come now, Tom. You don't mean to let on that you like it?"
The brush continued to move, leaving a beautiful, even coat of white on the rough wood. "Like it?" Tom said, turning to look at Ben with a look of genuine wonder in his eyes.
"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 matter in an entirely new light. Ben Rogers stopped chewing. He stood there, his eyes fixed on Tom, his mind working hard to process this incredible statement.
Was it possible? Did Tom Sawyer, the cleverest boy in town, actually enjoy this chore?
Tom painted on, completely absorbed in his work. He did not look at Ben. He did not look at the apple. He seemed to have forgotten that there was anything else in the world besides this fence and this brush.
He took a long, sweeping stroke. Then he stepped back, bent his body to the left, then to the right, squinting at the wood to see if the coverage was absolutely perfect.
He took a step forward, touched up a tiny spot with the very tip of the brush, and stepped back again.
Ben watched every movement. He was fascinated. He had come to laugh, but now he was finding himself strangely drawn to the white paint and the wooden boards.
There was something about the way Tom handled the brush, the precision, the care, the quiet pride that made the whole thing look remarkably like an art.
It didn't look like a chore at all. It looked like a privilege.
"Say, Tom," Ben said after a long silence. His voice was no longer teasing. It was quiet, almost respectful. "Let me do a little."
Tom turned and looked at Ben. He seemed about to say yes, but then he stopped himself. He shook his head slowly, a look of deep concern coming over his face.
"No," Tom said, his voice grave. "No, Ben, I don't think I can do that. You see, Aunt Polly, she's terribly particular about this fence. It's right here on the street, you know.
If it was the back fence, I wouldn't mind, and she wouldn't either. But this fence has got to be done just right.
I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe 2,000 that can do it the way it's got to be done."
"Oh, come on, Tom," Ben pleaded, taking a step closer. "Just a little. I'd be powerful careful. I'll let you have the core of my apple."
Tom shook his head again, though his eyes lingered for a fraction of a second on the red fruit. "No, Ben, don't ask me. I'm scared.
If you was to do it and something was to go wrong, Aunt Polly would feel terrible. Why, Jim wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let him. Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid.
Now, do you see how I'm situated? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen..."
"Oh, shucks, Tom," Ben cried, his desire to paint now burning like a fire inside him. The more Tom refused, the more Ben wanted that brush.
It was no longer just a brush. It was a magic wand, and the fence was a canvas of pure gold. "I'll be just as careful as you. I'll give you the whole apple, Tom. Look at it, it's a big one. You can have all of it."
Tom looked at the apple. He looked at Ben's eager, pleading face. He pretended to hesitate. He let his face show a great, painful struggle between his duty to Aunt Polly and his friendship for Ben.
"Well," Tom said slowly, his voice trembling slightly, as if he were making a terrible mistake. "I don't know, Ben. I'm powerful scared."
"Please, Tom." Slowly, reluctantly, with a deep sigh that suggested he was giving away his most precious treasure, Tom handed the brush to Ben Rogers.
And as the retired artist sat down on the wooden box in the shade of the tree, his legs dangling, his mouth full of the sweet, juicy apple Ben had given him, he watched his friend sweat in the hot sun.
Ben was no longer a steamboat. He was a boy working with all his might, his brow furrowed in concentration, his tongue sticking out slightly as he tried to paint the fence just right.
Tom took a bite of the apple and smiled. The trick had worked. The hook was set.
But the story of that Saturday morning does not end with Ben Rogers and his apple. As the sun rose higher in the sky, more boys came strolling down the dusty street.
They came just as Tom had feared they would, with plans of swimming, fishing, and playing in the woods. They came ready to laugh at the boy who was forced to work on a holiday.
But when they arrived, they did not find a miserable Tom Sawyer dragging a heavy brush. They found Ben Rogers, sweating and painting with the devotion of a monk.
While Tom sat comfortably in the shade of a large oak tree, eating an apple, playing with his pocket treasures, and looking like a king on his throne.
The arriving boys stopped. They stared. They asked questions.
And Tom, with his masterly air of quiet indifference, played the same game with every single one of them.
He explained that whitewashing was not a chore. It was a rare and wonderful honor. He explained that Aunt Polly was so particular about this front fence that only a true artist could touch it.
He refused their first offers with a look of deep concern, pointing out how difficult and important the work was.
And the result was always the same. The boys' mockery turned to curiosity, then to interest, and finally to a desperate, burning desire to paint.
They began to beg for a turn. And when begging did not work, they began to offer their most prized possessions.
Billy Fisher was the next to fall. He traded a kite in good condition with a long, beautiful tail of paper bows.
Then came Johnny Miller, who bought his turn at the brush with a dead rat and a long piece of string to swing it with. It was a magnificent rat, perfect for scaring girls or swinging around one's head in a circle.
By the middle of the afternoon, the scene around Aunt Polly's fence had turned into something entirely ridiculous.
The street, which was usually quiet on a hot Saturday, was bustling with activity. A crowd of boys stood around, waiting their turns.
They were no longer thinking about the river or the woods or their freedom. Their entire world had shrunk to the size of that wooden fence and the bucket of white paint.
They watched the boy with the brush with eyes full of jealousy, counting the seconds until it was their turn to paint.
And Tom Sawyer sat in the shade, growing richer by the minute. He did not have to lift a finger. He did not have to sweat.
He simply sat back, watched the boys do his work for him, and collected his toll.
By the time the afternoon was half spent, Tom was no longer a poor, miserable boy with a handful of junk. He was, by the standards of St. Petersburg, a wealthy man.
In addition to the apple and the kite, his pockets and the ground around him were piled with treasures. He had 12 marbles of various colors and sizes.
He had a fragment of a Jew's harp, which could make a buzzing sound if you held it to your teeth. He had a piece of blue bottle glass, which turned the whole world into a beautiful, watery blue when you looked through it.
He had a key that didn't unlock anything, but looked very official hanging from his belt. He had a brass doorknob, shiny and heavy.
He had a dog collar, though he did not own a dog to put it on. He had the wooden handle of a pocket knife, four pieces of dried orange peel, and a dilapidated old window sash that had no glass in it, but was still very satisfying to carry around.
And while Tom was collecting this magnificent bounty, the fence was getting painted. It did not just get a single thin coat of whitewash.
Because there were so many boys, and because they were all trying so hard to prove they were particular enough for the job, the fence received three full coats of paint.
If Tom hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have ruined every boy in the village by trading them out of their last possessions.
At last, the bucket was empty. The brush was dry. The 30 yards of rough gray board fence had been transformed into a brilliant, gleaming wall of pure white.
It stood proudly in the afternoon sun, looking grander than any fence in the whole state of Missouri.
Tom stood up from his seat in the shade, stretched his arms, and looked at the finished work. He gathered his treasures into his pockets, which bulged so heavily that he could barely walk, and went inside to report to Aunt Polly.
He found her sitting by the open window of the kitchen, knitting. She was prepared to give him a lecture about the dangers of laziness and the importance of hard work, expecting that he had barely finished a single yard of the fence.
"May I go and play now, Auntie?" Tom asked, trying to look meek.
Aunt Polly looked up over her spectacles, her face stern. "What? Already? How much have you done?"
"It's all done, Auntie." "Tom, don't you lie to me," she said, her voice rising. "I can't bear it."
"I ain't lying, Auntie. It is all done. Go see for yourself."
Aunt Polly could hardly believe her ears. She rose from her chair, marched out to the front yard, and looked at the fence.
When her eyes fell upon the magnificent, triple-coated white wall, she stopped. She stared. The spectacles nearly fell from her nose.
It was so clean, so bright, and so perfectly done that she could not find a single flaw. The sheer beauty of the work took her breath away.
"Well," she gasped, her stern face softening into a look of deep wonder and pride. "I never did see the like. There's no getting around it, Tom. You can work when you've a mind to."
She reached out, patted his head, and gave him a choice apple from her pantry, not realizing, of course, that Tom had already eaten a much larger one earlier that day.
She gave him her blessing, and Tom skipped out of the gate, free at last to enjoy the rest of his Saturday.
As Tom ran down the street, his pockets jingling with marbles, keys, and brass doorknobs, he felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
He had not only escaped his punishment, he had turned it into a triumph.
But as he grew older, Tom would look back on that Saturday morning and realize that he had stumbled, quite by accident, onto a great law of human nature.
It is a law that philosophers and wise men have written about for centuries. But Tom Sawyer discovered it with nothing but a bucket of paint and a wooden brush.
He had discovered that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make that thing hard to get.
If Tom had begged the boys to help him, they would have run away. If he had offered to pay them with his marbles, they would have laughed.
But because he made the work seem rare, precious, and difficult to attain, they were willing to give up their freedom and their treasures for a chance to do it.
He realized that work is what a person is obliged to do, and play is what a person is not obliged to do.
In England, there are wealthy gentlemen who drive four-horse passenger coaches 20 or 30 miles in the heat of summer, because the privilege costs them a great deal of money.
But if they were offered wages to do the exact same thing as a job, it would become work, and they would refuse to do it.
And so, as we leave Tom Sawyer to his Saturday afternoon, with his pockets full of loot and his heart full of joy, we are left with a thought to carry with us into our own lives.
It is a question that has puzzled thinkers for ages, and it is one that you might want to think about as the night grows quiet and the stars come out.
Why is it that we want the very things that are hard to get? Why does a toy look more beautiful when it is on the highest shelf, or a game seem more exciting when we are told we cannot play it?
Can wanting be invented? And if someone can make us want something just by making it hard to find, how much of what we desire is truly ours?
And how much of it is just a whitewashed fence, waiting for us to pay our treasures for a turn at the brush?