"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--"

She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching

under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the

punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.

"I never did see the beat of that boy!"

She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the

tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom.

So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and

shouted:

"Y-o-u-u TOM!"

There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to

seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.

There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in

there?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What IS that

truck?"

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer