Quote 1
"Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?"
"What's that?"
"Why, engaged to be married."
"No."
"Would you like to?"
"I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?"
"Like? Why it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's all. Anybody can do it." (7.32-8)
Though Tom is evidently more knowledgeable than Becky when it comes to terminology, he's still too young to really understand the way love and marriage work.
Quote 2
"Boys, I know who's drownded -- 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 lost 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. (14.25-6)
Children, and only children, could exalt in such a situation – in being thought dead by friends and loved ones – without being touched by the stranger, eerier implications of it.
Quote 3
"The eats by a bell, she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell—everything's so awful reglar a body can't stand it.
"Well, everybody does it that way, Huck." (35.7-8)
Tom seems to be coming to terms with the adult way of life. He certainly hasn't become one, yet, but he might just be starting to see the light at the end of childhood's long tunnel.
Quote 4
"Boys, I know who's drownded -- 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 lost 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. (14.25-26)
Here, we see Tom's desire to die temporarily actually come true – or, well, begin to come true. When he finally returns to town the cycle is complete.
Quote 5
"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your share?"
"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every circus that comes along. I bet I'll have a gay time."
"What you going to do with yourn, Tom?"
"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-'nough sword, and a red necktie and a bull pup, and get married." (25.48-9; 53-4)
The childishness of Tom's dream is only emphasized by his inclusion of marriage in what is otherwise a rather silly list of desires.
Quote 6
"Yes, that's it, Huck -- that's it; though when you're burying it if you say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to bother me!' it's better. That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and most everywheres. But say -- how do you cure 'em with dead cats?" (6.80)
Once again, Tom shows that, as far as he's concerned, going anywhere outside of St. Petersburg is the equivalent of going pretty much everywhere. His knowledge of the world is confined to his hometown.
Quote 7
The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell -- everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."
"Well, everybody does that way, Huck." (35.7-8)
The Widow's regimen, and, most especially, Tom's defense of it, seems curiously at odds with the vision of boyhood, of specifically American boyhood, that Tom has come to represent.
Quote 8
""Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly -- well, 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 lemme try." (2.40-1)
Tom's trick, however clever or charming it may be, is still a form of manipulation.
Quote 9
Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric sympathy of love; and by that form was the only vacant place on the girls' side of the school-house. He instantly said:
"I stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn!" (6.118-9)
Here, Tom demonstrates that even telling the truth can be a form of manipulation.
Quote 10
Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom said:
"Oh, it ain't anything."
"Yes it is."
"No it ain't. You don't want to see." (6.143-6)
Tom's tricks aren't all first-class; sometimes he simply resorts to classic ruses to get what he wants.
Quote 11
"A thought shot like lightning through Tom's brain. He sprang to his feet and shouted –
"I done it!"
The school stared in perplexity at this incredible folly. Tom stood a moment, to gather his dismembered faculties; and when he stepped forward to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude, the adoration that shone upon him out of poor Becky's eyes seemed pay enough for a hundred floggings. (30.30-32)
Here, even as Tom sacrifices himself, the manipulative aspect of his actions should be acknowledged. He is putting himself on the line in order to help Becky, yes, but also to win her back.
Quote 12
Tom saw his opportunity—
"Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning robber."
"No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?"
"Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let you into the gang if you ain't respectable, you know." (35.12-15)
Tom's nimble imagination – and the fact that most of his schemes have no basis in reality – allows him to coax Huck in to going back to the Widow Douglas.
Quote 13
"Say -- what is dead cats good for, Huck?"
"Good for? Cure warts with."
"No! Is that so? I know something that's better."
"I bet you don't. What is it?"
"Why, spunk-water."
"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water." (6.57-61)
Superstitions function as a kind of street smarts, a way for kids, in this case Tom and Huck, to demonstrate their knowledge.
Quote 14
"Say, Hucky -- do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?"
"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does."
Tom, after a pause:
"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody calls him Hoss."
"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead people, Tom." (9.10-14)
Even when their fears are normal or understandable – the whole ghost in the graveyard thing is pretty standard – Tom and Huck take things to a new level; they are very serious about the supernatural.
Quote 15
"I don't want any marks. They always bury it [treasure] under a ha'nted house or on an island, or under a dead tree that's got one limb sticking out. Well, we've tried Jackson's Island a little, and we can try it again some time; and there's the old ha'nted house up the Still-House branch, and there's lots of deadlimb trees -- dead loads of 'em." (25.17)
In St. Petersburg, no superstition or spooky locale is left unaccounted for; the strange thing is, Tom's logic does work. He watches Injun Joe take treasure from the "haunted" house.
Quote 16
"My! I never once thought of it, Huck!"
"Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped onto me that it was Friday."
"Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck. We might 'a' got into an awful scrape, tackling such a thing on a Friday."
"Might! Better say we would! There's some lucky days, maybe, but Friday ain't." (26.4-7)
Here again, superstition gives Huck and Tom the opportunity to delay what is, no doubt, a scary endeavor – they go off and pretend to be Robin Hood instead.
Quote 17
"It [Injun Joe's ghost] would hang round the money. I know the ways of ghosts, and so do you."
Tom began to fear that Huck was right. Misgivings gathered in his mind. But presently an idea occurred to him –
"Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves! Injun Joe's ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!"
The point was well taken. It had its effect. (33.58-61)
In order to bolster Huck's confidence, Tom trumps one with another. Though they do believe in the craziest things, their system has some order to it.
Quote 18
"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?"
"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that -- that --"
"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting -- for they talked "by the book," from memory. (8.17-19)
Here we see that Tom and Joe Harper are actually able to change their manner of speaking to suit their role-playing; they, like Twain, understand what a difference "voice" can make. (It should also be noticed that Tom has no trouble remembering lines from Robin Hood, but he can't even memorize the smallest bit of the Sermon on the Mount for Sunday school.)
Quote 19
"Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in 'em and set 'em afloat, and wherever there's anybody that's drownded, 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." (14.16-8)
However silly their superstitions may be, the boys do understand the sometimes magical power of words.
Quote 20
"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the n*****. I don't know him. But I never see a n***** that wouldn't lie. Shucks!" (6.65)
Though Tom seems to have no problems with interacting with black slaves – he even learns how to whistle from one – he still distrusts them and doesn't seem them as individual. He seems to assume that all black people are the same.