{"id":"01KG16QY85HWGEJJDMA3S1SPK5","cid":"bafkreielb4wec5a6lrjohhqrb6chdo2bq7ftg5lf5kjp6ainxljmikc4xm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":919,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:25:56.263Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":843,"text":"CHAPTER II\r\n\r\n\r\nSaturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and\r\nfresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if\r\nthe heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in\r\nevery face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom\r\nand the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond\r\nthe village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far\r\nenough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.\r\n\r\nTom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a\r\nlong-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and\r\na deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board\r\nfence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a\r\nburden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost\r\nplank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant\r\nwhitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed\r\nfence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at\r\nthe gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from\r\nthe town pump had always been hateful work in Tom’s eyes, before, but\r\nnow it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at\r\nthe pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there\r\nwaiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting,\r\nskylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred\r\nand fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an\r\nhour—and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:\r\n\r\n“Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.”\r\n\r\nJim shook his head and said:\r\n\r\n“Can’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an’ git dis water\r\nan’ not stop foolin’ roun’ wid anybody. She say she spec’ Mars Tom gwine\r\nto ax me to whitewash, an’ so she tole me go ’long an’ ’tend to my own\r\nbusiness—she ’lowed _she’d_ ’tend to de whitewashin’.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That’s the way she always talks.\r\nGimme the bucket—I won’t be gone only a a minute. _She_ won’t ever\r\nknow.”\r\n\r\n“Oh, I dasn’t, Mars Tom. Ole missis she’d take an’ tar de head off’n me.\r\n’Deed she would.”\r\n\r\n“_She_! She never licks anybody—whacks ’em over the head with her\r\nthimble—and who cares for that, I’d like to know. She talks awful, but\r\ntalk don’t hurt—anyways it don’t if she don’t cry. Jim, I’ll give you a\r\nmarvel. I’ll give you a white alley!”\r\n\r\nJim began to waver.\r\n\r\n“White alley, Jim! And it’s a bully taw.”\r\n\r\n“My! Dat’s a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I’s powerful\r\n’fraid ole missis—”\r\n\r\n“And besides, if you will I’ll show you my sore toe.”\r\n\r\nJim was only human—this attraction was too much for him. He put down\r\nhis pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing\r\ninterest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he\r\nwas flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was\r\nwhitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with\r\na slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye.\r\n\r\nBut Tom’s energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had\r\nplanned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys\r\nwould come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and\r\nthey would make a world of fun of him for having to work—the very\r\nthought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and\r\nexamined it—bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange\r\nof _work_, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour\r\nof pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and\r\ngave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless\r\nmoment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great,\r\nmagnificent inspiration.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG16PT5D1C7HBB3KXCHPMDHV","peer_label":"CHAPTER II","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","peer_label":"tom_sawyer.txt","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KFXT0KM64XT6K8W52TDEE0YS","peer_label":"More Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG16QY80HB58H0D32QC3RH7T","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:25:56.665Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:25:57.419Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}