This story tells us that
1. The value of something is not always fixed. The harder it appears to be obtained, the higher the value of the item.
2. The fun of doing something depends heavily on your atttitude toward doing it.
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence and all gladness left him, a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing “Buffalo Gals.” Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom’s eyes before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and Negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket under an hour - and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:“Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.”Jim shook his head and said:“Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water an’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She says she spec’ Mars Tom gwine to ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me to go ’long an ‘tend to my own business - she ‘lowed she’d ‘tend to de whitewashin’.”“Oh, never you mind she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks. Gimme the bucket - I won't be gone only a minute. She won’t every know.”“Oh, I dasn’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me. ‘Deed she would.”“She! She never licks anybody - whacks ‘em over the head with her thimble - and who cares for that, I’d like to know. She talks awful, but talk don’t hurt - anyways, it don’t if she don’t cry. Jim, I’ll give you a marvel. I’ll give you a white alley!”Jim began to waver.“White alley, Jim! And it’s a bully taw.”“My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel. I tell you! But Mars Tom, I’s powerful ‘fraid ole missis -”“And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.”Jim was only human - this attraction was too much for him. He put down his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigour, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.But Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him having to work - the very thought of it burned him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it - bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of work, maybe, but not enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straightened means to his poke, 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-and-jump - proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations were high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long melodious whoop, at intervals followed by a deep-toned ding-dong, ding-dong, for he was personating a steam-boat. 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-ow!” His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles - for it was representing a forty-foot wheel.“Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-ow!” The left hand began to describe circles.“Stop the stabborad! 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-ch-chow-ow! Get out that head line. Lively now! Come - out with the 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! Sht! Sht! Sht!”Tom went on whitewashing - paid no attention to the steam-boat. 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 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. Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d druther work - wouldn’t you? Course you would!”Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:“What do you call work?”“Why, ain’t that work?”Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know 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 recon 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 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’ fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it --”“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, no you don’t. I’m afeared --”“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 sing 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 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 spoon 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, 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 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.
