he only endured it--if he even did that much. He was restive all

through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously

--for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the

clergyman's regular route over it--and when a little trifle of new

matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature

resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the

midst of the prayer a fly had lit on the back of the pew in front of

him and tortured his spirit by calmly rubbing its hands together,

embracing its head with its arms, and polishing it so vigorously that

it seemed to almost part company with the body, and the slender thread

of a neck was exposed to view; scraping its wings with its hind legs

and smoothing them to its body as if they had been coat-tails; going

through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if it knew it was perfectly

safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom's hands itched to grab for

it they did not dare--he believed his soul would be instantly destroyed

if he did such a thing while the prayer was going on. But with the

closing sentence his hand began to curve and steal forward; and the

instant the "Amen" was out the fly was a prisoner of war. His aunt

detected the act and made him let it go.

The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through

an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod

--and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone

and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be

hardly worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after

church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer