Music Welcome to snoozecast. The podcast is on to help you fall asleep. Find a sad snoozecast.com and wherever you listen to podcasts. If you'd like to listen, add free or unlock our our entire vast and snoozy catalog of sleep stories, go to snoozecast.com slash plus. This episode is brought to you by a peaceful village. Tonight, we'll read an excerpt from the adventures of Tom Sawyer, written by Mark Twain in 1876. Snuescast first read this back in January of 2022. It is a story about a boy growing up along the Mississippi River, often with his friend, Huckleberry Finn. Originally a commercial failure, the book ended up being the best selling of any of Twain's works during his lifetime and is considered to be a masterpiece of American literature. It was also one of the first novels to be written on a typewriter. Twain, whose real name was Samuel Langhorn Clemens, drew heavily from his own childhood experiences in Hannibal, Missouri, when crafting the adventures of Tom Sawyer. The fictional town of St. Petersburg is modeled after Hannibal, reflecting the vibrant and sometimes dangerous life along the Mississippi River during the mid-19th century. Many of the characters in the novel were inspired by real people Twain knew in his youth, with Tom Sawyer himself being a composite of Twain and two of his childhood friends. This connection to real-life adventures in Mischief gives the novel its authentic charm and timeless appeal. The book not only captures the spirit of boyhood and adventure, but also subtly critiques aspects of society, such as authority, social class, and superstition. Twain weaves humor and satire into the narrative, offering readers insight into the social norms and expectations of small town America during that era. The adventures of Tom Sawyer has inspired numerous adaptations across film, theater, and television, and its themes of freedom, rebellion, and the joys of youth continue to resonate with audiences around the world. Let's get cozy, close your eyes, relax your body into the the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. Tom Sawyer presented himself before his aunt, Polly, who was sitting by an open window in a pleasant, rearward apartment, which was bedroom, breakfast room, dining room, and library combined. The bombing summer air, the restful quiet,

the odor of the flowers,

and the drowsing murmur of the bees had had their effect.

And she was nodding over her knitting.

For she had no company, but the cat. And it was asleep in her knitting. For she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her lap. Her spectacles were propped up on her grey head for safety. She had thought that Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at seeing him place himself in her power in this intrepid way. He said, may I go and play now, Aunt? What, are you ready? How much of the fence have you painted? It's all done, Aunt. Tom, don't lie to me. I can't bear it. I ain't, it is all done. Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for herself, and she would have been content to find 20% of Tom's statement true. when she found the entire fence whitewashed and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoded and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable. She said, Well, I never. There's no getting around it. You can work when you're mind to Tom. And then she diluted the compliment by adding, But it's powerful seldom you're mind to, I'm bound to say, Well, go long play, but mind to get back sometime in a week, Or all-tania. She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. And while she closed with a happy, scriptural flourish, he hooked a donut. Then he skipped out and saw his goody-goody half-brother Sid just starting up the outside stairway that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Dirt clothes were handy round Tom's feet, and then the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around sit like a hail storm, and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general thing, he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his aunt, that the white thread of his shirt had turned black, which meant Tom had gone swimming, and got him into trouble. Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley, that led by the back of his aunt's cow stable. He presently

got safely beyond the reach of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of

the village, where two military companies of boys had meant for conflict, according to the

previous appointment. Tom was general of one of these armies, Joe Harper, a bosom friend, general of the other. These two great commanders did not condescend to fight in person, that being better suited to the still smaller fry. But sat together on an eminence and conducted the field operations by order delivered through the camp. Tom's army won a great victory after a long and hard fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the necessary battle appointed, after which the armies fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone. As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl in the garden. Lovely, blue-eyed, with yellow hair braided into two long tails. White summer frock. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart, and left not even a memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction. He had regarded his passion as adoration and behold, it was only a poor little, evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her. She had confessed hardly a week ago. He had been the happiest and proudest boy in the world, only seven short days, and here, in one instant of time, she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is done. He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye till he saw that she had discovered him. he pretended he did not know she was present and began to show off in all sorts of absurd, boyish ways in order to win her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time but by and by while he was in the midst of some dangerous,

gymnastic performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was winding her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it, grieving and hoping she would Terry yet, a while longer.

She halted a moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she disappeared. The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower and then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as if he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction. Presently, he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his nose with his head tilted far back, and as he moved from side to side, in his efforts, he edged near and nearer toward the pany. Finally, his barefoot rested upon it. His toes closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure, and disappeared around the corner. But only for a minute, only while he could button the flower inside his jacket next to his heart, or next to stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in anatomy and not hypercritical anyway. He returned now and hung about the fence till nightfall, showing off as before, but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally, he strode home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions. All through supper, his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered what had gotten into the child. He took a good scolding about clotting Sid and did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his dancets' very nose, and got his knuckles wrapped for it. He said, Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it. Well, Sid don't torment the body the way you do. You'd be always into that sugar if it weren't watching you. Presently, she stepped into the and said, happy in his immunity reached for the sugar bowl, a sort of gloring over Tom, which was well-nigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and broke. Tom was an ecst. In such ecstasy that he even controlled his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a word. Even when his ant came in, but would sit perfectly still till she asked who did the mischief. And then he would tell, and there would be nothing so good

in the world as to see that pet model catch it. He was so brimful of exaltation that he could hardly hold himself when the old lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath from over her spectacles. He said to himself, now it's coming, and the next instant he was sprawling on the floor. The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom cried out, hold on, now what are you belting me for, Sid broke it. Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when she got her tongue again, she only said, huh? Well, you didn't get a lick of mish-eye, Reckon. You've been in some other audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough. Then her conscienceached her, and she yearned to say something kind and loving, but she judged that this would be construed into a confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. So she kept silent, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart. Tom sult in a corner. He knew that in her heart, his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was merosely gratified by the consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals. He would take notice of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, and then through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him, besieging one little forgiving word. But he would turn his face to the wall, and die with that word unsaid. Ha, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself, brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back her boy, and she would never, never abuse him anymore. But he would lie there cold and white and make no sign of poor little sufferer whose griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos of these dreams that he had to keep swallowing. He was so liked to choke and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked, and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any worldly cheeriness, or any grating delight intrude upon it. It was too sacred for such contact, and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit of one week to the he got up and moved in clouds and darkness out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other. He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys and sought desolate places that were in harmony with his spirit. A law-graphed in the river invited him, and he ceded himself on its outer edge and contemplated the dreary vastness of this stream, wishing the wild that he could only be drowned all at once and unconsciously without undergoing the uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower. He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismal felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew, would she cry and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck and comfort him, or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world. This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he worked it over and over again in his mind and set it up in new and varied lights till he wore it threadbare. That last he rose up, sighing and departed in the darkness. He didn't have past nine or ten o'clock, he came along the deserted street

to where the adored unknown lived. He paused a moment. No sound fell upon his listening ear.

A candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain of a second story

window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed the fence. Threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood under that window. He looked up at it long and with emotion. Then he laid him down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back with his hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor, wilted flower. And thus she would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning and, oh, would she drop one little tear upon his poor lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so one timely cut down.

The window went up, a maid servants' discordant voice profaned the holy calm and a day-lush of water

drenched the prone martyrs' remains. The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whizz as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound as of shivering glass followed, and a small vague form went over the fence and shot away in the gloom. Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip. Sit woke up. But if he had any dim idea of making any references to illusions, he thought better of it and held this peace for there was danger in Tom's eye. Tom turned in without the added fixation of prayers and sit made mental note of the emission. The sun rose upon a tranquil world and beamed down upon the peaceful village like a benediction. Breakfast over Aunt Polly had family worship. It began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid courses, of scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of originality, and from the summit of this, she delivered a grim chapter of the Mosaic law. Then Tom girded up his lines, so to speak, and went to work to get his verses, Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the sermon on the mount because he could find no verses that were shorter. At the end of half an hour, Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, but no more. For his mind was traversing the whole field of human thought, And his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary took his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through the fog. Blessed are the poor. Yes, poor. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit. For They, they, theirs for theirs.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they, for they, uh, s, h, a, for they, s, h, a, for they, uh, S-H-A for they, S-H. Hmm. Oh, I don't know what it is. Shell. Oh, oh, shell. For they, shell. For they, shell, uh, uh, shelln. Blessed are they that shall. They that... they that shall mourn. For they shall... shall what? Why don't you tell me Mary? What do you want to be so mean for? Oh, Tom, you poor thickheaded thing. I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom. You'll manage it. And if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice. There now. That's a good boy. All right. What is it, Mary? Tell me what it is. Never you mind, Tom. You know, if I say it's nice, it is nice. You bet you that so, Mary. All right. I'll tackle it again. And he did tackle it again. And under the double pressure of curiosity and perspective gain, he did it with such spirit that he accomplished a shining success. Mary gave him a brand new Barlow knife, worth 12.5 cents, and the convulsion of delight that swept his system shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything, but it was a sure enough Barlow, and there was an inconceivable grandeur in that.

Though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a weapon could possibly be counterfitted to its injury, is an imposing mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom contrived to scarify the cupboard with it and was arranging to begin on the bureau when he was called off to dress for Sunday school. Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap and he went outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there. Then he dipped the soap in the water and laid it down, turned up his sleeves, poured out the water on the ground gently, and then interd the kitchen, and began to wipe his face diligently on

the towel behind the door. But Mary removed the towel and said, Now ain't you ashamed, Tom?

You mustn't be so bad.

Water won't hurt you.

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