Literature Central: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapters 1-4

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapters 1-4
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was written by the infamous Mark Twain over a hundred years ago. The preface written by him is dated 1876. However, he says that the book takes place 30-40 years even before that, in the west. He says that Huck Finn was real-life drawn, but the actual character--Tom Sawyer--was drawn from multiple people's personalities. And he said that, while he wrote it for kids, he also wanted adults to enjoy it, so they have pleasant memories of their youth, their feelings, and the odd stuffs and jobs they sometimes got into and wrapped themselves in.
In Chapter 1, we meet Tom and his Aunt Polly. We learn that Tom's mom, Polly's sister, is dead. Tom is caught after eating forbidden jam in the closet, but he manages to escape Polly after the first capture with a trick. We learn that Polly never uses the switch (beating device) on Tom... her heart can't bear it. But she is determined to get him to work on Saturday.
Tom sneaks off for the rest of the afternoon, swimming being a big activity. At dinner, Polly tries to get him to admit it, but fails. Then Tom's younger brother, Sid, points out an important detail that Polly missed and reveals Tom. Yet Tom manages to get away again.
At the end of the chapter, Tom meets a new.boy who just moved to Tom's home village of St. Petersburg (sp?). He is fancily dressed. Tom quickly hates the new boy, who is not named. The two circle each other, taunting each other and having a "word fight". When the new boy finally offers two coins for Tom to prove his claim that he can beat the new boy up, a fight begins. Tom wins, but when the boy is retreating, he tosses a stone, and Tom chases him to his house. Tom sticks around a while, but the new boy's mom eventually gets him to leave. Once Polly sees the state of Tom's clothes, she becomes set and determined to have him work on Saturday.
Now we come to Chapter 2, which is about this Saturday work. Now, it is a beautiful summer day, and everyone is happy. Tom starts out happy... but when he reaches the 30 yards of fence he has to whitewash, his spirit drops. He tries to get Jim, the colored boy who I think is the family's slave, to do it, but Jim has his orders. Tom tries to banter, but Polly intervenes... Jim manages to get away with a prize, however.
Tom then gets very clever. He knows boys will stop to make fun of him of working on a Saturday, but he quickly thinks up a plan. He makes whitewashing look like something desirable, and then refuses to let others work on it. Then he trades them the work for certain objects of value to a young boy, like marbles and something called "white alleys", along with a kite and pieces of a jew's (sp?) harp to boot. He relaxes, all the while, and the fence manages to get at least three coatings of whitewash, and he has a ton of stuff. But the only reason the plan stops is because the whitewash runs out... or else he would have done this to every boy in town!
Chapter 3 begins when Tom tells Aunt Polly he's done, and tricks her into thinking it was all his doing. She actually buys it, and rewards him (of course, he sneaks off a treat as well). He goes to play with his friends then. He leads an army, and his friend leads another. They issue orders, which are carried to the armies, and a "battle" begins. Tom wins this round, and certain formalities are done, and then the date for the next "necessary" battle is set.
On the way home, Tom sees a new girl in town. He falls in love with her, forgetting totally about the last girl he fell in love with (and got to admit love back). He does a ton of goofy things to impress her, while pretending not to care. He manages to get a flower from her, but no more. But Tom is very happy about this anyway.
Trouble comes at home. Polly raps his knuckles for stealing from the sugar bowl, and we learn that Sid is not punished for these things. But, while Polly off somewhere else, Sid actually breaks the bowl while stealing from it! But does he get punished? NO... at least, I think not. But Polly immediately slaps (I think, most likely possibility) Tom for the offense! Now, he was admittedly going to rat on his brother, but it's still not fair. Polly does not apologize (and, as far as I can tell, does not punish Sid).
Tom knows that Polly is feeling guilty in her mind, but it does not help his mood. He falls into a sorrowful lapse, and goes out for a while. He even stops by his new crush's house at night, and lies outside the window. But a maid dumps water all over him, and a grumpy Tom comes home.
Chapter 4 covers the following Sunday. Polly leads a family sermon, and then the kids go off to memorize verses. Tom does not do so well, until encouraged by his cousin Mary (who came in the last chapter), and manages to get all 5 of his verses. He gets a knife for it. It's not one that can do damage, but he's excited about it all the same.
Then he washes his head (helped by Mary), and gets his "other clothes" (AKA, Sunday clothes, but that's what they were called by the family) on. Surprisingly, these have lasted him two years, wearing them only on Sunday. Also, we learn that this is the only time Tom wears shoes. His temper snapped when he had to put them on, so he must not like it.
When he gets to Sunday School, he sticks outside the door to do some bantering. There's a ticket system here... for every two verses one memorized, they got a blue ticket. 10 blues could be traded in for a red, and then 10 reds for a yellow, and then 10 yellow got a Bible. Since these were so difficult to get, it came with a lot of glory and attention. And Tom wanted that glory and attention! He did some bantering.
Then some visitors came in while the "Superintendent" (Tom's nickname for Mr. Walters, the main teacher) was doing his thing (mainly, a big speech, possible sermon). One was a new Judge, who was the brother of the Lawyer Thatcher (who came too). Also, this Judge was the father of the girl who Tom was now crushing on! Since the girl came along, Tom's last crush, Amy Lawrence, figured out the new love situation, and was filled with anger and hate... especially for Tom!
Everyone began to "show off" a little. Tom had already started for his girl, but everyone joined in for the Judge, since he was radiating such an aura. But even he was doing it!
But then Tom pulled off a major stunt. He had gathered enough tickets to get a Bible! While Mr. Walters had been wanting to give a Bible in front of the Judge, this took everyone by surprise. And Judge Thatcher suspected something as well. Some of the boys, who Tom had bantered with both during the whitewashing and for the tickets, felt miserable, and angry at themselves. Judge Thatcher made a speech about how Tom would grow up a great and good man, how he would look back, and be thankful for Sunday School, the teachers, his good raising, and the knowledge he had. Judge Thatcher said he would be grateful, and not trade the verses supposedly memorized (which, if Tom had been telling the truth, would be around 2 thousand!) for even money.
And then Judge Thatcher asked a question that was supposedly simple. Of course, Tom couldn't answer it. He was silent for a while, but then when he did answer, he got it totally wrong!

Polly is not a good parent. While I'm no fan of beating, I did think that Tom got off way too easy too many times. Of course, I believe that is the point.
But she made many other mistakes... she knew how much of a bad boy Tom was. She should have gone out to check on his progress on the whitewashing a couple of times. And then he wouldn't have been able to pull the wool over her eyes!
And then there came the Sugar Bowl Incident. She shouldn't have hit Tom! I understand her mind-setting, but I believe that she should have taken the time to find out the situation. At the very least, she should have apologized when she found out she was in the wrong!
Then the book makes no mention of Sid getting punished for the Sugar Bowl Incident. Polly was not fair in that situation! If Tom got in trouble for stuff, Sid should be treated the same way! But he got away with stuff that Tom didn't... and then was never punished for the major stuff, like breaking the sugar bowl, even though his brother Tom got slapped for it (or, at least, I think it was a slap...).
I believe Mary was a better "parent" than Polly. The book makes Mary sound like an older girl, though there is no definite age as of yet. Mary can actually make Tom do stuff without resorting to punishing or anything. But she's no parent yet... I do believe that correct discipline must be in order. But Polly takes it to not-good levels, either being too easy, too hard, or not fair in the slightest.
Tom, on the other hand, is an amazing character in some ways. He is extremely clever, at least part of the time. The Whitewashing Plan was very well-done and impressive. However, he is nothing but trouble. And I can't totally blame Polly for her mind-set, though I think she should be a better parent.
Judge Thatcher, in his own respect, is very clever. That plan to reveal Tom was very well-done. However, I cannot say if it was intentional or not. But the whole scene was well-done and well-played. And I did not care for how he was basking in glory.
In general, the characters are, so far, well-rounded, and make degrees of sense. There are side-characters, like Jim, who we don't get very much about... at least, not yet. But the characters had a lot of work put into them, and make some degrees of sense.
But some actions don't. The doing-goofy-stuff-while-ignoring-girl bit seemed a little outlandish, and too much. I mean... if you like someone, go and at least introduce yourself! Don't show off and do whacky things! Those may attract some girls, but they don't attract everybody! And why do bad stuff to attract girls? That was outlandish, though it may have only been the mindset of a young boy.
Some things, however, made sense. I felt totally for the boys who realized in church how they had gotten swindled, and tricked into an elaborate scheme. I totally got how they felt guilty and angry at themselves for falling for Tom's scheme, and getting him to power when they shouldn't have. I totally get that!
The book itself... could use work. I did not get 24/7 what was going on... like whether or not Polly did slap Tom, or did something else (I'm pretty sure it was a slap, though...). While it was mainly minor stuff that I got lost on, I had to go back and re-read some things to figure out even partially what happened.
I will say that the accent was pretty well-written, if it was truly the accent of the day. It was transferred very well on paper. But it made the dialogue hard, sometimes very hard, to read sometimes! So much so, it was hard to tell what the characters were saying sometimes!
The slang didn't help. There was only one explained slang-term. But the old slang made things hard to understand sometimes. And some of the slang, and shortenings of words in the dialogue, didn't always make the best of sense... in fact, there's some I can't figure out!