Last week we took Tehya, Paeton and Natalie to see a local theatre group perform Tom Sawyer. In it there was a scene I had to pay attention to because of something that has puzzled me a bit. It has to do with a thought in the preface of our original cookbook. Do you read prefaces? There is a line where Lovella refers to the beginning of her time as a blogger and seeing "within her readership an opportunity to whitewash her fence by inviting readers to share their favorite recipes."
I obviously skimmed Mark Twain's book when I had to read it way back when and a lot of it went over my head. Dealing with the slang and sarcasm as a new Canadian was a bit of a challenge.
So, today . . . just for fun let me bring back that scene for you with a few chosen excerpts from the story.
"Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life."
"Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high . . ."
A friend named Ben came skipping by and a conversation began . . .
“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?”
Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:
“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”
“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”
The brush continued to move.
“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?”
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.”
As the story goes, Ben begged his way to proving that he could paint the fence and . . .
"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."
The grands thought it was a pretty cool trick, but I have to say that I still do not feel tricked into joining Lovella in whitewashing her fence . . . it's been work, but it's been rewarding for me too!
