{"id":"01KG1784A703K3TAPHDG5Z5KH9","cid":"bafkreihzdanuzrfidise5ee7bh4atg5c3s44mh5umtixql2kqiztmqukqy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2661,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:34:46.759Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":2603,"text":"CHAPTER VIII\r\n\r\n\r\nTom dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the\r\ntrack of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed\r\na small “branch” two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile\r\nsuperstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later\r\nhe was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff\r\nHill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in the\r\nvalley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to\r\nthe centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak.\r\nThere was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even\r\nstilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken\r\nby no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a wood-pecker, and\r\nthis seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the\r\nmore profound. The boy’s soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings\r\nwere in happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his elbows\r\non his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him\r\nthat life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy\r\nHodges, so lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie\r\nand slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through\r\nthe trees and caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and\r\nnothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more. If he only had a\r\nclean Sunday-school record he could be willing to go, and be done with\r\nit all. Now as to this girl. What had he done? Nothing. He had meant\r\nthe best in the world, and been treated like a dog—like a very dog. She\r\nwould be sorry some day—maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only\r\ndie _temporarily_!\r\n\r\nBut the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained\r\nshape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into\r\nthe concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and\r\ndisappeared mysteriously? What if he went away—ever so far away, into\r\nunknown countries beyond the seas—and never came back any more! How\r\nwould she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only\r\nto fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights\r\nwere an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was\r\nexalted into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be\r\na soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious.\r\nNo—better still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on\r\nthe warpath in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the\r\nFar West, and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with\r\nfeathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy\r\nsummer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs\r\nof all his companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was\r\nsomething gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it!\r\n_now_ his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable\r\nsplendor. How his name would fill the world, and make people shudder!\r\nHow gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low,\r\nblack-hulled racer, the Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying\r\nat the fore! And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear\r\nat the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in\r\nhis black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson\r\nsash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass\r\nat his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled,\r\nwith the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy\r\nthe whisperings, “It’s Tom Sawyer the Pirate!—the Black Avenger of the\r\nSpanish Main!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG176GJ5W8RVWY0Y8K6Y7EJG","peer_label":"CHAPTER VIII","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":"01KG1784A2N4TF0A7QVQ0YWASD","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:34:47.177Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:34:47.821Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}