From "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain:
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.
“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?”
“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 – criticised 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 reckon there ain’t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it
the way it’s got to be done.”
“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, now don’t. I’m afeard – ”
“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 swing it with – and so on, 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 in wealth.
He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve
marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a
spool 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, six fire-crackers,
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 old 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.
