The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens)
Readability: 8
Setting: Hannibal, Missouri
Age of Main Character: 12

Tom and Huck, dragging a dead cat, entered the cold, gloomy graveyard in the still of the night. Tom was shivering from fright, and the slightest sound made him jump for fear it might be the ghosts of some dead soul.

All of a sudden Tom and Huck stood still. "Listen, " stammered Huck. The boys scarcely breathed. The sound of muffled voices floated up from the other end of the graveyard. "It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom this is awful. " Some vague figures approached and again Huck shuddered, "It's the devils, sure enough, three of them! "

"No," whispered Tom. "Those are humans: Thems Muff, Dr. Robinson, and Injun Joe."

"Hurry, men, " shouted the doctor, "the moon might come out at any moment."

Huck and Tom sat motionless, staring at the men, the wheelbarrow, and the shovels.

Tom Sawyer is a boy, full of fun and mischief, who likes nothing better than wandering off into unaccustomed haunts and adventures. Tom is an honest boy, a happy boy, a boy filled with wonder, and a boy who is a promoter -- a boy who could talk people into anything.

The story depicts Tom's adventures, sometimes hair raising, with his friends, Huckleberry Finn, Joe Harper, and BeckyThatcher. Some of these adventures are whitewashing the fence, showing off in Sunday School by receiving a Bible he hadn't earned, seeing a murder in the graveyard, playing pirate and disappearing for several days, watching his om funeral, saving Muff Potter, and finding a buried treasure.

Underlying the story is a touch of 1896 superstition and belief. The story is told in Southern dialect.

Questions:

1. What is the story about?


2. Why did the town mothers dislike huck?


3. How did it happen that Huck and Tom saw the murder in the graveyard?


4. How did Huck and Tom get back into the good graces of the townspeople after their cave adventure?


5. Which of Tom Sawyer's ideas do you think the most clever? Why?