Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of

Amy's grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the

other distress. Becky resumed her picture inspections with Alfred, but

as the minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph

began to cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absent-mindedness

followed, and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her

ear at a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came. At last she

grew entirely miserable and wished she hadn't carried it so far. When

poor Alfred, seeing that he was losing her, he did not know how, kept

exclaiming: "Oh, here's a jolly one! look at this!" she lost patience

at last, and said, "Oh, don't bother me! I don't care for them!" and

burst into tears, and got up and walked away.

Alfred dropped alongside and was going to try to comfort her, but she

said:

Go away and leave me alone, can't you! I hate you!"

So the boy halted, wondering what he could have done--for she had said

she would look at pictures all through the nooning--and she walked on,

crying. Then Alfred went musing into the deserted schoolhouse. He was

humiliated and angry. He easily guessed his way to the truth--the girl

had simply made a convenience of him to vent her spite upon Tom Sawyer.

He was far from hating Tom the less when this thought occurred to him.

He wished there was some way to get that boy into trouble without much

risk to himself. Tom's spelling-book fell under his eye. Here was his

191

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer