The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Donde la tía Polly trata de pillar a Tom en falta, Sid colabora para confirmar la sospecha y Tom escapa justo a tiempo para evitar el castigo.

En vocabulario played hookey, singed cat y lam. Más abajo te ponemos un link para leer Tom Sawyer en inglés, y gratis. Jackie Coogan fue uno de los Tom Sawyers en la pantalla grande.

De Las Aventuras de Tom Sawyer, de Mark Twain.

 

… While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of treachery, and very deep—for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning. Said she:

"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?"

"Yes'm."

"Powerful warm, warn't it?"

"Yes'm."

"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?"

A bit of a scare shot through Tom—a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said:

"No'm—well, not very much."

The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said:

"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew where the wind lay, now. So he anticipated what might be the next move:

"Some of us pumped on our heads—mine's damp yet. See?"

Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new inspiration:

"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"

The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt collar was securely sewed.

"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a singed cat, as the saying is—better'n you look. This time."

She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom had stumbled into obedient conduct for once.

But Sidney said:

"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread, but it's black."

"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!"

But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said:

"Siddy, I'll lick you for that."

In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into the collars of his jacket, and had thread bound about them—one needle carried white thread and the other black. He said:

"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to gee-miny she'd stick to one or t'other—I can't keep the run of 'em. But I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!"

He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though—and loathed him… (Paragraphs from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, adapted to easier English.)

 

Vocabulario

Play hookey: play truant. Be absent from school without an excuse.

En los Estados Unidos y Canadá hay un número de expresiones relacionadas con faltar a clase, sin tener problemas médicos, por ejemplo: hooky, playing hooky, ditching, dipping, skipping, cutting class, o cutting.

 

The truant´s log

Singed cat: one that is of better quality than appearance indicates.

Lam: to beat soundly.

 

Adaptaciones

El libro The Adventures of Tom Sawyer fue luego adaptado a varios formatos: cine, teatro, televisión, internet, ballet.

En 1930 Jackie Coogan interpretó a Tom Sawyer en un film dirigido por John Cromwell. Fue la tercera adaptación de la novela de Twain, siguiendo versiones mudas de 1907 y 1917. El film recaudó 11 millones de dólares y fue la atracción del año. Jackie Coogan fue el niño que protagonizó con Charlie Chaplin la película The Kid.

 

Tom Sawyer, 1930

Recursos

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, to read the story online.

 

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