Page 188 - 9th-language-english-2

Monday Morning

- Mark Twain

It was Monday morning. Tom Sawyer was feeling miserable.
Not to be republished
Monday morning always found him so, because it started another
week’s slow “suffering” in school. He generally began that day
with wishing he had no holiday on Sunday. It made the going
to school again so much more painful.
©KTBS
Tom lay thinking. Presently he found himself pretending
that he was sick; then he could stay home from school. There
was just a chance that something was wrong with him. He
mentally examined every part of his body. He found no ailment.
He investigated again. Just then he thought he could detect some
slight pain in the stomach.
Tom began to encourage it with considerable hope. But he
had little success. The pain soon grew feeble, and presently died
wholly away. He investigated further. Suddenly he discovered
something. One of his upper front teeth was loose. This was
lucky, he was about to begin to groan, as a “starter”, as he called
it. But almost all at once it occurred to him that if he told his
aunt about it, she would pull it out, and that would hurt. So he
thought he would hold the tooth in reserve for the present, and
investigate further.

Nothing seemed to come to his help for some time. Then
Tom remembered the doctor telling about a certain thing that
laid up a patient for two or three weeks and threatened to make
him lose a finger. So the boy eagerly drew his sore toe from under
the sheet and held it up for inspection. Now that he had found
a promising ailment, he had only to produce the symptoms. But
he did not know what these were. However, it seemed worthwhile
taking a chance. So he fell to groaning with considerable spirit.
He should first of all get Sid, his younger half brother, to tell his
aunt about his ailment. But Sid slept on very soundly.

Tom groaned louder and imagined that he began to feel
pain in the toe. But there was little response from Sid. Tom was

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