{"id":"01KG16T80WZ7YZMHVS8FW1N7A6","cid":"bafkreibyclm3tmepyknzn7xwqq2dbkkyg5koy7qab27cf4bcum2wsw32hy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4800,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:27:11.715Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":4732,"text":"CHAPTER XVII\r\n\r\n\r\nBut there was no hilarity in the little town that same tranquil Saturday\r\nafternoon. The Harpers, and Aunt Polly’s family, were being put into\r\nmourning, with great grief and many tears. An unusual quiet possessed\r\nthe village, although it was ordinarily quiet enough, in all conscience.\r\nThe villagers conducted their concerns with an absent air, and talked\r\nlittle; but they sighed often. The Saturday holiday seemed a burden to\r\nthe children. They had no heart in their sports, and gradually gave them\r\nup.\r\n\r\nIn the afternoon Becky Thatcher found herself moping about the deserted\r\nschoolhouse yard, and feeling very melancholy. But she found nothing\r\nthere to comfort her. She soliloquized:\r\n\r\n“Oh, if I only had a brass andiron-knob again! But I haven’t got\r\nanything now to remember him by.” And she choked back a little sob.\r\n\r\nPresently she stopped, and said to herself:\r\n\r\n“It was right here. Oh, if it was to do over again, I wouldn’t say\r\nthat—I wouldn’t say it for the whole world. But he’s gone now; I’ll\r\nnever, never, never see him any more.”\r\n\r\nThis thought broke her down, and she wandered away, with tears rolling\r\ndown her cheeks. Then quite a group of boys and girls—playmates of Tom’s\r\nand Joe’s—came by, and stood looking over the paling fence and talking\r\nin reverent tones of how Tom did so-and-so the last time they saw\r\nhim, and how Joe said this and that small trifle (pregnant with awful\r\nprophecy, as they could easily see now!)—and each speaker pointed out\r\nthe exact spot where the lost lads stood at the time, and then added\r\nsomething like “and I was a-standing just so—just as I am now, and as if\r\nyou was him—I was as close as that—and he smiled, just this way—and then\r\nsomething seemed to go all over me, like—awful, you know—and I never\r\nthought what it meant, of course, but I can see now!”\r\n\r\nThen there was a dispute about who saw the dead boys last in life, and\r\nmany claimed that dismal distinction, and offered evidences, more or\r\nless tampered with by the witness; and when it was ultimately decided\r\nwho _did_ see the departed last, and exchanged the last words with them,\r\nthe lucky parties took upon themselves a sort of sacred importance,\r\nand were gaped at and envied by all the rest. One poor chap, who had\r\nno other grandeur to offer, said with tolerably manifest pride in the\r\nremembrance:\r\n\r\n“Well, Tom Sawyer he licked me once.”\r\n\r\nBut that bid for glory was a failure. Most of the boys could say that,\r\nand so that cheapened the distinction too much. The group loitered away,\r\nstill recalling memories of the lost heroes, in awed voices.\r\n\r\nWhen the Sunday-school hour was finished, the next morning, the bell\r\nbegan to toll, instead of ringing in the usual way. It was a very still\r\nSabbath, and the mournful sound seemed in keeping with the musing hush\r\nthat lay upon nature. The villagers began to gather, loitering a moment\r\nin the vestibule to converse in whispers about the sad event. But there\r\nwas no whispering in the house; only the funereal rustling of dresses\r\nas the women gathered to their seats disturbed the silence there. None\r\ncould remember when the little church had been so full before. There\r\nwas finally a waiting pause, an expectant dumbness, and then Aunt Polly\r\nentered, followed by Sid and Mary, and they by the Harper family, all in\r\ndeep black, and the whole congregation, the old minister as well, rose\r\nreverently and stood until the mourners were seated in the front pew.\r\nThere was another communing silence, broken at intervals by muffled\r\nsobs, and then the minister spread his hands abroad and prayed. A moving\r\nhymn was sung, and the text followed: “I am the Resurrection and the\r\nLife.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG16PT5FGQBC7SHFJMN1N523","peer_label":"CHAPTER XVII","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":"01KG16T7ZAMPYTQTC4JRAXTM82","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:27:12.176Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:27:12.948Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}