CHAPTER XXII
TOM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted bythe showy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain fromsmoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now hefound out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is thesurest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that verything. Tom soon found himself tormented with a desire to drink andswear; the desire grew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of achance to display himself in his red sash kept him from withdrawingfrom the order. Fourth of July was coming; but he soon gave that up--gave it up before he had worn his shackles over forty-eight hours--andfixed his hopes upon old Judge Frazer, justice of the peace, who wasapparently on his deathbed and would have a big public funeral, sincehe was so high an official. During three days Tom was deeply concernedabout the Judge's condition and hungry for news of it. Sometimes hishopes ran high--so high that he would venture to get out his regaliaand practise before the looking-glass. But the Judge had a mostdiscouraging way of fluctuating. At last he was pronounced upon themend--and then convalescent. Tom was disgusted; and felt a sense ofinjury, too. He handed in his resignation at once--and that night theJudge suffered a relapse and died. Tom resolved that he would nevertrust a man like that again.
The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded in a style calculatedto kill the late member with envy. Tom was a free boy again, however--there was something in that. He could drink and swear, now--but foundto his surprise that he did not want to. The simple fact that he could,took the desire away, and the charm of it.
Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted vacation was beginningto hang a little heavily on his hands.
He attempted a diary--but nothing happened during three days, and sohe abandoned it.
The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to town, and made asensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band of performers and werehappy for two days.
Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure, for it rainedhard, there was no procession in consequence, and the greatest man inthe world (as Tom supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United StatesSenator, proved an overwhelming disappointment--for he was nottwenty-five feet high, nor even anywhere in the neighborhood of it.
A circus came. The boys played circus for three days afterward intents made of rag carpeting--admission, three pins for boys, two forgirls--and then circusing was abandoned.
A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came--and went again and left thevillage duller and drearier than ever.
There were some boys-and-girls' parties, but they were so few and sodelightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder.
Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with herparents during vacation--so there was no bright side to life anywhere.
The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic misery. It was a verycancer for permanency and pain.
Then came the measles.
During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and itshappenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he gotupon his feet at last and moved feebly down-town, a melancholy changehad come over everything and every creature. There had been a"revival," and everybody had "got religion," not only the adults, buteven the boys and girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for thesight of one blessed sinful face, but disappointment crossed himeverywhere. He found Joe Harper studying a Testament, and turned sadlyaway from the depressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found himvisiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, whocalled his attention to the precious blessing of his late measles as awarning. Every boy he encountered added another ton to his depression;and when, in desperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom ofHuckleberry Finn and was received with a Scriptural quotation, hisheart broke and he crept home and to bed realizing that he alone of allthe town was lost, forever and forever.
And that night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain,awful claps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered hishead with the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for hisdoom; for he had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub wasabout him. He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers aboveto the extremity of endurance and that this was the result. It mighthave seemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with abattery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about thegetting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turffrom under an insect like himself.
By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing itsobject. The boy's first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. Hissecond was to wait--for there might not be any more storms.
The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weekshe spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroadat last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering howlonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He driftedlistlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in ajuvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of hervictim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating astolen melon. Poor lads! they--like Tom--had suffered a relapse.
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