Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the fourteenth chapter of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

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Today, we'll be continuing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Chapter 14 When Tom awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around.

Then he comprehended it was the cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods.

Not a leaf stirred, not a sound obtruded upon great nature's meditation.

Beaded dewdrops stood upon the leaves and grasses, a white layer of ashes covered the fire, and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air.

Joe and Huck still slept now far away in the woods.

A bird called, another answered.

Presently the hammering of a woodpecker was heard.

Gradually the cool dim gray of the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life manifested itself, the marvel of nature, shaking off sleep and going to work, unfolded itself to the musing boy.

A little green worm came crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two thirds of his body into the air from time to time and sniffing around, then proceeding again.

For he was measuring, Tom said, and when the worm approached him of its own accord, he sat as still as a stone, with his hopes rising and falling by turns as the creature still came toward him, or seemed inclined to go elsewhere.

And when at last it considered a painful moment with its curved body in the air, and then came decisively down upon Tom's leg and began a journey over him.

His whole heart was glad, for that meant that he was going to have a new suit of clothes without the shadow of a doubt a gaudy pirateical uniform.

Now a procession of ants appeared from nowhere in particular and went about their labors.

One struggled manfully with a dead spider, five times as big as itself in its arms and lugged it straight up a tree trunk.

A brown spotted ladybug climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade and hum bitten down close to it and said, ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.

Your house is on fire, your children's alone.

And she took wing and went off to see about it, which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations, and he had practiced upon its simplicity more than once.

A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at its ball, and han touched the creature to see it shut its legs against its body and pretend to be dead.

The birds were fairly rioting by this time.

A cat bird, the northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom's head and trilled out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of enjoyment.

Then a shrilled jay swept down a flash of blue flame and stopped on a twig almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one side, and eyed the strangers with a consuming curiosity.

A gray squirrel and a big fellow of the fox kind came scurrying along, sitting up at intervals to inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had probably never seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to be afraid or not.

All nature was wide awake and stirring now.

Long lances of sunlight pierced down through the dense foliage far and near, and a few butterflies came fluttering upon the scene.

Tom stirred up the other pirates, and they all clattered away with a shout, and in a minute or two were stripped and chasing after and tumbling over each other in the shallow, limpid water of the white sandbar.

They felt no longing for the little village sleeping in the distance beyond the majestic waste of water.

A vagrant current or a slight rise in the river had carried off their raft, but this only gratified them, since its going was something like burning the bridge between them and civilization.

They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad hearted and ravenous, and they soon had the campfire blazing up again.

Huck found a spring of clear, cold water close by, and the boys made cups of broad oak or hickory leaves and felt that water sweetened with such a wildwood charm as that would be a good enough substitute for coffee.

While Joe was slicing bacon for breakfast, tom and Huck asked him to hold on a minute.

They stepped to a promising nook in the riverbank and threw in their lines.

Almost immediately they had reward.

Joe had not had time to get impatient before.

They were back again with some handsome bass, a couple of sun perch and a small catfish, provisions enough for quite a family.

They fried the fish with the bacon and were astonished, for no fish had ever seemed so delicious before.

They did not know that the quicker a freshwater fish is on the fire after he's caught, the better he is.

And they reflected little upon what a sauce.

Open air sleeping, open air, exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient of hunger make, too.

They lay around in the shade after breakfast while Huck had a smoke, and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition.

They tramped gaily along over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the ground with a drooping regalia of grapevines.

Now and then they came upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers.

They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be astonished at.

They discovered that the island was about 3 miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly 200 yards wide.

They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the middle of the afternoon when they got back to camp.

They were too hungry to stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham and then threw themselves down in the shade to talk.

But the talk soon began to drag and then died.

The stillness, the solemn tea that brooded in the woods, and the sense of loneliness began to tell upon the spirits of the boys.

They fell to thinking.

A sort of undefined longing crept upon them.

This took dim shade.

Presently it was budding homesickness.

Even Finn the Red Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps and empty hog's heads.

But they were all ashamed of their weakness.

A nun was brave enough to speak his thought.

For some time now the boys had been dully conscious of a peculiar sound in the distance, just as one sometimes is of the ticking of a clock, which he takes no distinct note of.

But now this mysterious sound became more pronounced and forced a recognition.

The boy started, glanced at each other, and then assumed a listening attitude.

There was a long silence, profound and unbroken.

Then a deep sullen boom came floating out of the distance.

What is it?

Exclaimed Joe under his breath.

I wonder, said Tom in a whisper.

Taint thunder, said Huckleberry in an odd tone, because thunder.

Hark.

Said Tom.

Listen.

Don't talk.

They waited a time that seemed an age, and then the same muffled boom troubled the solemn hush.

Let's go and see.

They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town.

They parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water.

The little steam ferry boat was about a mile below the village, drifting with the current.

Her broad deck seemed crowded with people.

There were a great many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the neighborhood of the ferry boat, but the boys could not determine what the men in them were doing.

Presently a great jet of white smoke burst from the ferryboat side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud, that same dull throb of sound was born to the listeners again.

I know now, exclaimed Tom, somebody's drowned.

That's it said huck.

They'd done that last summer when Bill Turner got drowned.

They shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him come up to the top.

Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in them and set them afloat.

And whenever there's anybody that's drowned, they'll float right there and stop.

Yes, I've heard about that.

Said Joe.

I wonder what makes the bread do that.

Oh, it ain't the bread so much, said Tom.

I reckon it's mostly what they say over it before they start it out.

But they don't say anything over it, said Huck.

I've seen them and they don't.

Well, that's funny, said Tom, but maybe they say it to themselves.

Of course they do.

Anybody might know that.

The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said because an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation could not be expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such gravity.

By jings, I wish I was over there now, said Joe.

I do, too, said Huck.

I'd give heaps to know who it is.

The boy still listened and watched.

Presently a revealing thought flashed through Tom's mind, and he exclaimed, boys, I know who's drowned.

It's us.

They felt like heroes in an instant.

Here was a gorgeous triumph.

They were missed.

They were mourned.

Hearts were breaking on their account, tears were being shed accusing memories of unkindness to these poor lots.

Lads were rising up and unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged.

And best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town and the envy of all the boys.

As far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned, this was fine.

It was worthwhile to be a pirate after all.

As twilight drew on, the ferry boat went back to her accustomed business and the skiffs disappeared.

The pirates returned to camp.

They were jubilant with vanity over their new grandeur and the illustrious trouble they were making.

They caught fish, cooked supper, and ate it, and then fell to guessing at what the village was thinking and saying about them.

And the pictures they drew of the public distress on their account were gratifying to look upon from their point of view.

But when the shadows of night closed them in, they gradually ceased to talk and sat gazing into the fire with their minds evidently wandering elsewhere.

The excitement was gone now, and Tom and Joe could not keep back thoughts of certain persons at home who were not enjoying this fine frolic as much as they were.

Misgivings came.

They grew troubled and unhappy.

A sire to escaped unawares.

By and by, joe timidly ventured upon a roundabout feeler as how to the others might look upon a return to civilization.

Not right now, but Tom withered with his derision Huck being uncommitted as yet joined in with Tom, and the waiver quickly explained, and was glad to get out of the scrape with as little taint of chicken hearted homesickness clinging to his garments as he could.

Mutiny was effectually laid to rest for the moment.

As the night deepened, Huck began to nod and presently to snore.

Joe followed.

Next, Tom lay upon his elbow, motionless for some time, watching the two intently.

At last he got up cautiously on his knees and went searching among the grass and the flickering reflections flung by the campfire.

He picked up and inspected several large semicillnders of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose two which seemed to suit him.

Then he knelt by the fire and painfully wrote something upon each of these with his red keel.

One he rolled up and put in his jacket pocket, and the other he put in Joe's hat and removed it to a little distance from the owner.

And he also put into the hat certain schoolboy treasures of almost inestimable value, among them a lump of chalk, an India rubber ball, three fush hooks, and one of that kind of marbles known as a sure enough crystal.

Then he tiptoed his way cautiously among the trees, till he felt that he was out of hearing, and straight away broke into a keen run in the direction of the sandbar.

Thank you for joining Byte at a Time Books today while we read a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlyle, and I hope you come back tomorrow for the next bite of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

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