Publisher's Synopsis
CHAPTER I.YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of TheAdventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was madeby Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was thingswhich he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. Inever seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was AuntPolly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, sheis--and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, whichis mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the moneythat the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got sixthousand dollars apiece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money whenit was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it outat interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the yearround--more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglasshe took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it wasrough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regularand decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't standit no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogsheadagain, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up andsaid he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if Iwould go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and shecalled me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm byit. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing butsweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thingcommenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to cometo time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, butyou had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a littleover the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter withthem, --that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In abarrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and thejuice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and theBulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by andby she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; sothen I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock indead people.Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But shewouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I musttry to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. Theyget down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she wasa-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing athing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course thatwas all right, because she done it herself.
