The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapters 35-36, Conclusion
Sid sneaks into the room that Tom and Huck are changing in. He reveals what the heck is going on: Widow Douglas is throwing a party for the old Welshman and his sons. He also reveals that the Welshman is going to tell Huck's part of the Widow's rescue, and that it won't be a surprise, since someone has rattled. Tom knows that the tattler is Sid, and kicks his younger brother out.
Thanks to Sid, the Welshman's surprise isn't so surprising anymore. But Tom manages to get a real shock out of the crowd. He reveals the treasure that he and Huck had dug up!
Things change quickly. All the nearby "haunted" houses are torn up for treasure, and the boys are considered like treasures themselves. They are each given an income from their 12-thousand dollar treasure depot.
Judge Thatcher is the one who is put in charge of Tom's money. He really likes Tom at this point. Things get even better after Becky tells her dad about how Tom saved her from a whipping in school.
Widow Douglas becomes Huck's guardian. Huck is made to live a civilized life... and he hates it. He even runs away, and starts living his old life again.
Tom fixes that. He and Huck have talked about making a robber gang before. He says that if Huck stops living a civilized life, he can't join the robber gang. Huck struggles, but decides to continue living the civilized life so he can be a robber.
The Conclusion could have been better. Mark Twain does a good job giving a good reason for stopping, but I would have liked to have known what happened to everyone. Mark Twain does say that they are happy and prosperous, but I would have liked more details. What did everyone grow up to be? Did any of them get married, and to whom?
I was really surprised about what happened to the treasure. I would have believed it if they had taken the treasure completely away from the boys. But instead, the adults took it and start giving it to the boys slowly.
Huck acted very realistically in this area. He suffered the civilized life as long as he could, and then ran away to live the life he liked. And yet, like a boy, he faltered in his decision and changed his mind so he could be a certain something he wanted to be.
I get that this book is considered one of the best ever. While I can see where Mark Twain could be considered a great author, I don't think this book is the best. The enjoyment level wasn't always very high. And there were some problems. To me, this was only an average book, and not really worth all the fuss.
Wild West Central
The Renoes
The Renoes were a famous outlaw brotherhood. They were famous for their train robberies. In fact, they were the "inventors" of train robberies in the West. They had been doing it since the Civil War. The robberies were so famous and successful, that other outlaws' train robberies seemed to follow the Renoes' pattern.
In fact, the Renoes became so big a problem for trains and train companies, that some of the big train companies got together and hired a big-time detective to stop the gang. The detective got to work by inflitrating (sp?) the gang's hometown. He got a saloon, and hired some other detectives to play different roles so that plans could be overheard. This team also got the first picture of a Reno gang member, and got it smuggled all the way to Chicago!
The Renoes were an outlaw brotherhood, but some of the members were also part of a real family. They were siblings whose last name was "Reno". The eldest of these siblings, Frank Reno, was a natural-born leader and crooked as well. He was the one who ended up leading the brotherhood which bore his last name.
Not all of the Renoes' crimes were train robberies. The train robberies were the famous thing, but they did other robberies as well. Once they had a robbery of a place with two safes. There was an older safe and a newer safe. They figured that the newer safe was probably the one with the money, since it was a better safe. After they spent hours popping the safe, they discovered that they were wrong. They had to open the other safe to find it stuffed with money.
Then they spent a rough little bit. They had to cross a river, and sleep during the day in a field. It wasn't comfortable, since they had ice on their clothing!
Then they had to get food that night, since they hadn't eaten in around 2 days. They managed to trick an old farmer and his wife into getting them dinner. But the leader thought that one of the members would have to get out his gun. The farmer kept insisting that his wife was sick, and she refused to get up. On the third try, she finally got up, and the leader reveals in what he has written down that she wasn't sick... she was lazy.
Then the gang had to take a ride on a freight train. They managed to trick a guy who owned a ton of cattle into thinking that they were drovers in need of work, and got hired. And then they had to move those cattle like real drovers!
Now, the train robberies were the big ones. One time, 7 of the gang, including Frank Reno, stole an actual train! They knocked and took out almost everyone of importance, and kicked off the passenger cars. They then took everything else, including the engine.
The dude with the keys to the safes refused to hand them over. So he was thrown off the train. Luckily he survived because of his landing spot.
Now, it turns out that it didn't matter that the Renoes didn't get the keys. The safes were older ones, and they could be pried open with crowbars. So the Renoes still got the government stuff and money that was inside the safes in the end.
The Renoes managed to make a getaway. They hopped out of the train at a certain place, where horses were waiting. It took a while for the people who had been knocked and taken out during the robbery to sound the alarm, since they had a bunch of stuff to do.
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