wellRED podcast - Bonus: Public Domain Sleepy Time Theatre #1 - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer By Mark Twain Ch. 1 &2

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

All Episodes of This Series Are Available by Subscribing to WeLoveCorey.com . AND THEY ARE AD FREE!!! It's less than a Starbucks a month, and sure would tickle Corey pink!   Below is the description from when this episode was released at WeLoveCorey.com over a month ago!   Hey, y'all! So i've had this idea floating around in my head for a while which means y'all get to hear it first and tell me if it's worth a lick!   Lately the only thing that has helped me fall asleep is by listening to audiobooks that i've heard a million times, preferably when the narrator has a calming voice..... so I thought.... well why don't I do that for people?   I like to read! I like to make people happy! I'd love to help people who have trouble sleeping because i'm a "people pleaser who needs everyone to like him" (sorry I was quoting my therapist!)   Anyways, heres the first ep of the first season in which we will be reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain   I really hope you enjoy!   Btw, SOOOOO many people are now swearing by this as the only way they can gwet to sleep, and have listened to the same episode multiple times! That really hits for me!   anyways, susbcribe at WeLoveCorey.com for this and much more!

And we thank them for sponsoring the show. Well, no, I'll just go ahead. I mean, look, I'm money dumb. Y'all know that. I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life. And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion, because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing. But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.

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Do you even know how many subscriptions that you actively pay for every month or every year? Do you even know? Do you know how much you spend on takeout or delivery? Getting a paid chauffeur for your chicken low main? Because that's a thing that we do in this society. Do you know how much you spend on that? It's probably more than you think. But now there's an app designed to help you manage your money better.

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practicing any Spanish for, you know, pertinent two years now or something like that. Also, a fun one I'd said it before, but I had a, I got an app, lovely little app where you could, you know, put your friends' faces onto funny reaction gifts and stuff like that. So obviously I got, I got it so I could put Corey's face on those two, those two like twins from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movies, you know, those weren't a little like the cue ball looking twin fellas. Yeah. So that was that in response to? What was that reply I give for just when I did something stupid. Something fat and stupid. Something both fat and stupid. But anyway, that was money well spent at first, but then I quit using it and was still paying for

it and forgotten. If it wasn't for Rocket Money, I never would have even figured it out. So shout out to them. They help. If you're money dumb like me, Rocket Money can help. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com slash well read today. That's rocketmoney.com slash well, RED. Rocketmoney.com slash well read. And we thank them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. They're the. Hey, everybody. It's your pal Corey Ryan Forster and welcome to public domain sleepy time, the podcast where I read you books and stories and screenplays, et cetera, in my most calming

southern voice in the hopes that it will help you wind down or Lord Willing, fall asleep. Why public domain you ask? Well, due to how copyright laws work, most of the classics that I would want to read to you are in the public domain. That, and of course, perhaps just as important a reason, I do not have to pay for them. And this is a grassroots podcast. That said, another big reason is that the more familiar you are with the story, perhaps the better chance you'll have of getting lost in it and drifting off to sleep or just relaxing. It's also a good chance for me to discover some classic works. I didn't know about, or in the case of this first season, rediscover one of my childhood favorites, as I will be reading to you, the American classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain.

Now, before we begin, a quick refresher about the novel and the genius who wrote it, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer came out in 1876. It's Mark Twain's tale of childhood rebellion, small town mischief, and, of course, moral awakening, and it's set in the fiction. town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, which is a fictionalized and more idealized version of Twain's boyhood home in Hannibal. The story follows, young Tom Sawyer, a clever, mischievous little boy with a, I would say, a penchant for drama and adventure from tricking his buddies into whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence to running away to become a pirate, witnessing a murder and getting lost in a cave, and eventually becoming a town hero.

Tom's escapades paint a pretty vivid picture of life along the Mississippi River in mid-19th century. The novel is it's comedy, it's suspense, it's social satire, it's nostalgic even though we're not from this time. And, you know, it also is a pretty good, it's fair, I won't even say, yeah, subtle. It's a subtle critique of the hippocry. and the superstitions of adults, at least at the time, but I'd say still now, characters like

Huckleberry Finn, who of course we all know would later star in his own, not just more mature, but more heralded novel. A lot of people say that it's the great American novel, and I look forward to reading it to y'all, but I thought it would be unwise to not start with Tom Sawyer. Speaking of Tom Sawyer, him and Becky Thatcher and villainous Injun Joe, they've all become iconic in American literature. And when Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer, he was already a well-known humorous in lecturer, but this novel

was a more ambitious literary turn for him. He was in his early 40s, recently married. He'd been living in Hartford, Connecticut, and he was really grappling with the tension between writing for popular entertainment and aspiring to

really make great long-lasting literature, something to be proud of. And Tom Sawyer was written partly as a, you know, very, as I said earlier, nostalgic tribute to his youth, but also as a subtle commentary on what was going on in post-Civil War America. He also originally intended Tom Sawyer to be for adults, but over time, he had to realize that this is a children's classic. And you'll, in the preface, you'll hear him sort of, sort of comment. on that. But regardless, it is absolutely a foundational work of American literature, novels, and storytelling, and I'm so excited to read it to you. So now, without further ado, let me do that.

Let me try to read you to sleep. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Preface. Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred. One or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life, Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual. He is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story, that is to say, 30 or 40 years ago. Although, my own. My book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls.

I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults what they once were themselves and of how they felt and thought and talked and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. Mark Twain, Hartford, 1876. Chapter 1. You Tom. Aunt Polly decides upon her duty. Tom practices music, the challenge, a private entrance.

Tom? No answer. Tom? No answer. What's wrong with that boy? I wonder. You, Tom. No answer.

The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room. Then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy. They were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for style, not service. She could have seen through a pair of stove lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear, Well, I lay, if I get a hold of you out. 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 gymson weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. She lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted, you, 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 have thought of that closet. What you've been doing in there? Nothing.

Nothing? Look at your hands, and look at your mouth. What is that truck? I don't know, aunt. Well, I know it's jam. That's what it is. Forty times I've said if you didn't let that jam alone, I'd skin you. Hand me that switch.

The switch hovered in the air. The peril was desperate. My, look behind you, aunt. The old lady whirled around and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled, on the instant, scrambled up the highboard fence and disappeared over it. His Aunt Polly stood surprised a moment and then broke into a gentle laugh. Hang the boy. Can I never learn anything?

Ain't he played me tricks enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But Old Fools is the be. biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays him alike two days and how is a body to know what's coming. He peers to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up and he knows if he can make it out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy and that's the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spy all the the child, as the good book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both. I know. He's full of the

old scratch, but laws of me, he's my own dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well, well, man that is born of woman is of few days and of full of trouble, as the scripture says, and I reckon it's so. He'll pull. He'll pull. He'll play hooky this evening and I'll just be obliged to make him work tomorrow to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he hates anything else and I've got to do some of my duty by him or I'll be the ruination of the child. Tom did play hooky and he had a very good time. He got back home

barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next day's wood and split the kindling's before supper. At least he was there in time to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. Tom's younger brother, or rather half-brother, Sid, was already through with his part of the work, picking up chips, for he was a quiet boy and had no adventurous, troublesome ways. While Tom was eating his supper and stealing sugar as opportunity offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile 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, weren't it? Yes, him. Powerful warm, weren't it? Yesam. Didn't you want to go in a swimming, Tom? A bit of a scarce shot through Tom, a touch of unconscionable. A touch of unconsorough. comfortable suspicion. He searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing, so he said, know them? 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 forestalled what might be the next moor.

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. her. Well, go long with you. I'd been sure you played hooky and been a swimming, but I forgive you, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of singed cat, as the saying is, better than 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, City, I'll lick you for that. In a safe place, Tom examined two large needles, which were thrust into the lapels 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. Con found it. Sometimes she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to Jiminy she'd stick to one or the other. I can't keep the run of them,

but I bet you all lamb said 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. Within two minutes or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles, not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man's art to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time,

just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practice it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short interval, in the midst of the music. The reader probably remembers how to do it if he had ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude.

He felt much as an astronomer feels, who has discovered a new planet, no doubt, as far, strong, deep, unalloyed, pleasure is concerned. The advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer. The summer evenings were long. It was not dark yet. Presently Tom checked his whistle. A stranger was before him. A boy, a shade darker than himself. A newcomer of any age, or of either sex, was an impressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy was well-dressed, too. Well-dressed on a weekday. This was simply astounding.

His cap was a dainty thing, his closed-button blue-coth roundabout, was new and nasty. and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes on, and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of ribbon. He had a sity-fied air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose at his finery, and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved, but only sideways, in a circle. They kept face to face. and eye to eye all the time. Finally, Tom said, I can lick you. I'd like to see you try it. Well, I can do it. No, you can't either. Yes, I can. No, you can't. I can't. You can't. Can't. An uncomfortable

pause. Then Tom said, what's your name? Tisn't any of your business, maybe. Well, I lo. I'll make it my business. Well, why don't you? If you say much I will. Much, much, much, much. They're Oh, you think you're mighty smart, don't you? I could lick you with one hand tied behind me if I wanted to. Well, why don't you do it? You say you can do it. Well, I will, if you fool with me. Oh, yes, I've seen whole families in the same fix. Smarty, you think you're some now, don't you? Oh, what a hat. You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it off, and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs. liar. You're another. You're a fighting liar and doesn't take it up. Oh, take a walk. Say,

if you give me much more your sass, I'll take and bounce a rock off your head. Oh, of course you will. Well, I will. Well, why don't you do it then? What do you keep saying you will for? Why don't you do it? It's because you're afraid. I ain't afraid. You are. I ain't, you are. Another pause and more eyeing and sidling around each other. Presently they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said, get away from here. Get away yourself. I won't.

I won't either. So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both shoving with might and mane, and glowering at each other with hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said,

you're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too. What do I care for your big brother? I've got a big brother that's bigger than he is, and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too. Both brothers were imaginary. That's a lie. You're saying so don't make it so. Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe and said, I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep. The new boy stepped over promptly and said, Now, you said you do it.

Now let's see you do it. Don't you crowd me now. You better look out. Well, you said you do it. Why don't you do it? Buy jingo for two cents, I will do it. The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out with derision. Tom struck them to the ground.

In an instant, both boys were. rolling and tumbling in the dirt gripped together like cats, and for the space of a minute, they tugged and tore at each other's hair and clothes, punched and scratched each other's noses, and covered themselves with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and, through the fog of battle, Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him with his fist. "'Holler Nuff,' said he. The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying, mainly from rage. "'Haller Nuff!'

"'At last the stranger got a smothered, nuff!' And Tom let him up and said, "'Now that'll learn you. "'Better look out who you're fooling with next time.' The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and threatening what he would do to Tom the next time he caught him out, to which Tom responded with jeers and started off in high feather,

and as soon as his back was turned, the new boy snatched up a stone, through it, and hit him between the shoulders, and then turned tail and ran like an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared and called Tom a bad, vicious, vulgar child and ordered him away. So he went away. But he said he lowed to lay for that boy. He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window,

he uncovered an ambuscade in the person of his aunt. And when she saw the state his clothes were in, her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness. Chapter 2. Strong temptations, strategic movements, The innocence beguiled. Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh and brimming with life.

There was a song in every heart, and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in bloom, and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a, delectable land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting. Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow in existence but a burden. Sying, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank, repeated the operation.

did it again, compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of un-white-washed fence, and sat down on a tree box, discouraged. Jim came skipping out the gate with a tin pail and singing buffalo gals, bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and Negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading, playthings, quarreling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only 150 yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour. And even then, somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said, say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some.

Jim shook his head and said, "'Camp, Mars, Tom, old Mrs. She told me I got to go and get this water and not stop fooling round with anybody. "'She says she specced Mars Tom going to ask me to whitewash, and so she told me, "'Go long and tend to my own business,' she loads. "'She'd tend to do to whitewashing.' "'Oh, never mind what she said. "'Jim, that's the way she always talks. "'Give me the bucket.

"'I won't be gone only a minute. "'She won't ever know.' "'Oh, I dazzant, Mars, Tom. "'Old Mrs. said she'd taken tarred my head off me.' Indeed she would. She never licks anybody. Wax them over the head where they're thimble, and who cares for that? I'd like to know.

She talks awful, but talk don't hurt. Anyways, it don't, if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you Marvel. I will give you a White Alley. Jim began to waver. White Allie, Jim, and it's a bully tall. My, that's a mighty gay Marvel, I tell you, but Mars Tom, I was powerful, afraid of old misses.

and besides, if you will, I'll show you my sore toe. Jim was only human. This attraction was too much for him. He put down his pale, took the wide alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment, he was flying down the street with his pale and tingling rear.

Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye. But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work. The very thought of it burnt him like a fire.

He got out his worldly wealth and examined it, bits of toys, marbles, and trash, enough to buy an exchange of work, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So, he returned his straightened means to his pocket and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment, an inspiration burst upon him, nothing less than a great magnificent inspiration. He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently, the very boy of all boys whose ridicule he had been dreaded. Ben's gate was the hop, skip, and jump, proof enough that.

that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple and given a long, melodious whoop at intervals, followed by a deep tone, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, for he was personating the big Missouri and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane deck, given the orders and executing them.

"'Stop her, sir. Tingling-ling. The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk. Ship up to back, tingling-ling. His arm straightened and stiffened down his sides. Sit her back on the stabbard. Tingling-ling, chow, chow. His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles, for it was representing a 40-foot wheel. Let her go back on the labored, tingling-ling, chow, chow, chow. The left hand began to disbally-stall. The left hand began to discus to describe circles. Stop the starboard, tinglingling, stop the lobbered. Come ahead on the starboard, stop her.

Let your outside turn over slow. Tinglingling, chow, ow, ow. Get that headline, lively now. Come out with your spring line. What's you about there? Take a turn around that stump with the bite of it. Stand by that stage. Now let her go.

Dumb with the engine, sir, tingling, ling. Sh! Sh! Sh! Sh! Sh! trying to gauge cocks. Tom went on whitewashing, paid no attention to the steamboat.

Ben stared a moment and then said, Hiya, you're up a stump, ain't you? No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with an eye of an artist. Then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said,

"'Hello, old chap, you got work, hey?' Tom wheeled suddenly and said, "'Why, it's you, Ben, I weren't noticing. "'Say, I'm going in a swim and I am. "'Don't you wish you could?' "'But of course you'd rather work, wouldn't you? "'Course you would.' Tom contemplated the boy a bit and said,

"'What do you call work?' "'Why, ain't that work?' Tom resumed his whitewashing and answered carelessly. "'Well, maybe it is and maybe it ain't. "'All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer.' Oh, come now, you don't mean to let on that you like it. The brush continued to move. Like it?

Well, I don't see why I oughtn to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day? That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth, stepped back to note the effect, added a touch here and there, criticized the effect again, Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested,

more and more absorbed. Presently, he said, Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little. Tom considered, was about to consent, but he altered his mind. No, no, I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful particular about this fence right here on the street, you know, but if it was the back fence, I wouldn't mind and she wouldn't. Yes, she's awful particular about this fence.

It's got to be done very careful. I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand that can do it the way it's got to be done. No, is that so? Oh, come on, let me just try, only just a little. I'd let you if you was me, Tom. Ben, I'd like to. Honest engine, but Aunt Polly, well, you know, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him. Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now, don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it, oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now let me try. Say, I'll give you the core of my apple. Well, here. No, Ben, now don't. I'm a feared. I'll give you all of it. Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer, Big Missouri, worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocence. There was no lack of material, boys happened along every little while. They came to jeer, but remained a whitewash.

By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair, and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with, and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came from being a poor, poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the thing before mentioned 12 marbles, part of a juice harp, a piece of blue bottle glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six firecrackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog collar, but no dog. the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange peel, and a dilapidated old window sash. He had had a nice, good idle time all the while, plenty of company, and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action without knowing it, namely that in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended what work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do, and this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a treadmill is work while rolling tin pens or climbing Mount Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger

coaches 20 or 30 miles on a daily line in the summer because the privilege cost them considerable money. But if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign. The boy mused a while over the substantial chance. which had taken place in his worldly circumstances and then winded towards headquarters to report. All right. Good night, y'all. I'll be back next week starting on Chapter 3. If you still ain't asleep, just start it over.

And just know, I'm praying for you because I know how bad it is to toss and turn. All right. Love y'all. Thank you so much for being here at we love Corey.com. Skiw.