"Tom Sawyer"
by Mark Twain

  Previous Page   Next Page   Speaker Off
 

     The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying--mainly from rage.

     "Holler 'nuff!"--and the pounding went on.

     At last the stranger got out a smothered "'Nuff!" and Tom let him up and said:

     "Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with next time."

 

     The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and threatening what he would do to Tom the "next time he caught him out." To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather, and as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw it and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and ran like an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away; but he said he "'lowed" to "lay" for that boy.

 
Text provided by Project Gutenberg.
Audio by LibriVox.org and performed by John Greenman.
Flash mp3 player by Jeroen Wijering. (cc) some rights reserved.
Web page presentation by LoudLit.org.