for her heart was singing, but Tom s tongue had lost its function. He
did not hear what Amy was saying, and whenever she paused expectantly
he could only stammer an awkward assent, which was as often misplaced
as otherwise. He kept drifting to the rear of the schoolhouse, again and
again, to sear his eyeballs with the hateful spectacle there. He could
not help it. And it maddened him to see, as he thought he saw, that
Becky Thatcher never once suspected that he was even in the land of the
living. But she did see, nevertheless; and she knew she was winning her
fight, too, and was glad to see him suffer as she had suffered.
Amy s happy prattle became intolerable. Tom hinted at things he had
to attend to; things that must be done; and time was fleeting. But in
vain the girl chirped on. Tom thought, Oh, hang her, ain t I ever going
to get rid of her? At last he must be attending to those things and she
said artlessly that she would be around when school let out. And he
hastened away, hating her for it.
Any other boy! Tom thought, grating his teeth. Any boy in the whole
town but that Saint Louis smarty that thinks he dresses so fine and is
aristocracy! Oh, all right, I licked you the first day you ever saw this
town, mister, and I ll lick you again! You just wait till I catch you
out! I ll just take and
And he went through the motions of thrashing an imaginary boy pummelling
the air, and kicking and gouging. Oh, you do, do you? You holler
nough, do you? Now, then, let that learn you! And so the imaginary
flogging was finished to his satisfaction.
Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of Amy s
grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the other
distress. Becky resumed her picture inspections with Alfred, but as the
minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph began to
cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absentmindedness followed,
and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her ear at
a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came. At last she grew
entirely miserable and wished she hadn t carried it so far. When
poor Alfred, seeing that he was losing her, he did not know how, kept
exclaiming: Oh, here s a jolly one! look at this! she lost patience at
last, and said, Oh, don t bother me! I don t care for them! and burst
into tears, and got up and walked away.
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