{"id":"01KG17999X5J6G0S71JDV0GMWN","cid":"bafkreifboofjld3ksj4m3o4mvdcpu43qccuuuvz64j4zwsx2txsqpymzae","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5386,"extracted_at":"2026-01-28T02:35:24.634Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG0K71QZ8KK7RGEGSNTB5534","start_line":5318,"text":"CHAPTER XX\r\n\r\n\r\nThere was something about Aunt Polly’s manner, when she kissed Tom, that\r\nswept away his low spirits and made him lighthearted and happy again. He\r\nstarted to school and had the luck of coming upon Becky Thatcher at the\r\nhead of Meadow Lane. His mood always determined his manner. Without a\r\nmoment’s hesitation he ran to her and said:\r\n\r\n“I acted mighty mean today, Becky, and I’m so sorry. I won’t ever, ever\r\ndo that way again, as long as ever I live—please make up, won’t you?”\r\n\r\nThe girl stopped and looked him scornfully in the face:\r\n\r\n“I’ll thank you to keep yourself _to_ yourself, Mr. Thomas Sawyer. I’ll\r\nnever speak to you again.”\r\n\r\nShe tossed her head and passed on. Tom was so stunned that he had not\r\neven presence of mind enough to say “Who cares, Miss Smarty?” until the\r\nright time to say it had gone by. So he said nothing. But he was in a\r\nfine rage, nevertheless. He moped into the schoolyard wishing she were\r\na boy, and imagining how he would trounce her if she were. He presently\r\nencountered her and delivered a stinging remark as he passed. She hurled\r\none in return, and the angry breach was complete. It seemed to Becky, in\r\nher hot resentment, that she could hardly wait for school to “take in,”\r\n she was so impatient to see Tom flogged for the injured spelling-book.\r\nIf she had had any lingering notion of exposing Alfred Temple, Tom’s\r\noffensive fling had driven it entirely away.\r\n\r\nPoor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself.\r\nThe master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied\r\nambition. The darling of his desires was, to be a doctor, but\r\npoverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village\r\nschoolmaster. Every day he took a mysterious book out of his desk and\r\nabsorbed himself in it at times when no classes were reciting. He kept\r\nthat book under lock and key. There was not an urchin in school but was\r\nperishing to have a glimpse of it, but the chance never came. Every boy\r\nand girl had a theory about the nature of that book; but no two theories\r\nwere alike, and there was no way of getting at the facts in the case.\r\nNow, as Becky was passing by the desk, which stood near the door, she\r\nnoticed that the key was in the lock! It was a precious moment. She\r\nglanced around; found herself alone, and the next instant she had the\r\nbook in her hands. The titlepage—Professor Somebody’s _Anatomy_—carried\r\nno information to her mind; so she began to turn the leaves. She came at\r\nonce upon a handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece—a human figure,\r\nstark naked. At that moment a shadow fell on the page and Tom Sawyer\r\nstepped in at the door and caught a glimpse of the picture. Becky\r\nsnatched at the book to close it, and had the hard luck to tear the\r\npictured page half down the middle. She thrust the volume into the desk,\r\nturned the key, and burst out crying with shame and vexation.\r\n\r\n“Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a person\r\nand look at what they’re looking at.”\r\n\r\n“How could I know you was looking at anything?”\r\n\r\n“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Sawyer; you know you’re\r\ngoing to tell on me, and oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! I’ll be\r\nwhipped, and I never was whipped in school.”\r\n\r\nThen she stamped her little foot and said:\r\n\r\n“_Be_ so mean if you want to! I know something that’s going to happen.\r\nYou just wait and you’ll see! Hateful, hateful, hateful!”—and she flung\r\nout of the house with a new explosion of crying.\r\n\r\nTom stood still, rather flustered by this onslaught. Presently he said\r\nto himself:\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG176GX4Q9QGN0DR46GD1W75","peer_label":"CHAPTER XX","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":"01KG179994J7HRNVX8Q8ZVKSNK","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-28T02:35:25.029Z","ts":"2026-01-28T02:35:25.932Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}