阅读理解
The fence was long and high. He put the
brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the
operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down.
He knew that his friends would arrive soon with
all kinds of interesting plans for the day. They would walk past him and laugh.
They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The
thought burned him like fire.
He put his hand into his pockets and took out
all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing
for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets-nothing that could buy even
half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave
up the idea.
At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful
idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked
up the brush and started again to whitewash.
While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared.
Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along it, he
was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a
boat captain. Then he said "Ding—Dong-Dong", "Ding—Dong— Dong"
again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises.
When he came close to Tom, he stopped.
Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at
Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hello! I'm going swimming, but you
can't go, can you? "
No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along
the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom's
mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working.
Ben said, "Hello, old fellow, you've got
to work, hey?"
Tom turned suddenly and said, "Why, it's
you, Ben! I wasn't noticing."
"Say—I'm going swimming. Don't you wish
you could? But of course you'd rather work—wouldn't you? Of course you would."
Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said, "What
do you call work?"
"Why, isn't that work?"
Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered
carelessly.
"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't.
All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer."
"Oh come, now, you don't mean to say that
you like it?
The brush continued to move.
"Like it? Well, I don't see why I shouldn't
like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his
brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and
there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested.
Soon he said, "Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."
Tom thought for a moment, and was about to agree,
but he changed his mind.
"No-no-it won't do, Ben. You see, Aunt
Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don't
think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough."
"No——is that so? Oh come, now——let me just
try. Only just a little."
"Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn't done
right, I'm afraid Aunt Polly …"
"Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say—I'll
give you the core of my apple."
"Well, here—No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid
…"
"I'll give you all of it."
Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on
his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun,
Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There
were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time
Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was
tired, Johnny bought it for a dead rat——and so on, hour after hour. And when the
middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures.
And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle
time all the time, with plenty of company, and the fence had been whitewashed three
times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging
to his friends.
He had discovered a great law of human action,
namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary
to make the thing difficult to get.
