Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy
Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy
Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy
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208<br />
<strong>Interpretation</strong><br />
as long a dream as that, without it!"<br />
any mistakes in Eventually the hoax<br />
is revealed because Joe Harper had told his mother <strong>of</strong> Tom's having left the<br />
camp that Wednesday evening. Poor Aunt Polly, who had rushed to teU<br />
Mrs. Harper <strong>of</strong> Tom's prophetic powers, is subject instead to remarkable<br />
embarrassment. Yet Tom has a knack for pr<strong>of</strong>iting from the exposure <strong>of</strong><br />
his deceptions no less than from the deceptions themselves as we saw in<br />
the case <strong>of</strong> the coUar thread, and as we guessed in the case <strong>of</strong> the "curtain<br />
<strong>of</strong><br />
charity."<br />
In the pocket <strong>of</strong> his old jacket he stiU had the bark on which<br />
pirates."<br />
When he<br />
he had written, "We ain't dead we are only <strong>of</strong>f being<br />
pleads in extenuation <strong>of</strong> his fakery that he had come over that night to<br />
reheve Aunt Polly's anxieties and not to gloat over them, she says, '"Tom,<br />
Tom, I would be the thankfuUest soul in this world if I could beheve you<br />
ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never did, and I<br />
know it, Tom."<br />
He pleads that this is the truth, and Aunt Polly begs him<br />
not to lie, that it only makes things a hundred times worse. Tom insists,<br />
against all probabUity and reason, that this is not a lie. Aunt Polly rejoins<br />
that she would "give the whole world to beheve that it would cover up<br />
a power <strong>of</strong><br />
sins."<br />
Tom explains that it was only the thought <strong>of</strong> the funeral<br />
that made him change his mind and put the bark back in his pocket. Then<br />
he teUs her how he kissed her as she slept, to which she responds with<br />
infinite pathos. Tom has so wrought upon her that her will to believe in<br />
him is equal in fuU to the great power <strong>of</strong> faith that is in her. It will require<br />
but a single scrap <strong>of</strong> evidence to make him the complete beneficiary <strong>of</strong> that<br />
faith. When Tom leaves she turns toward the closet with its tattered<br />
jacket. Her heart is overwhelmed with its burden <strong>of</strong> love, and she reasons<br />
herself into justifying him,<br />
her hand to take the garment . . . and twice she<br />
whatever the evidence. "Twice she put out<br />
refrained."<br />
Finally, "she<br />
fortified herself with the thought: 'It's a good lie it's a good lie I won't<br />
let it grieve<br />
me.'<br />
... A<br />
moment later she was reading Tom's piece <strong>of</strong> bark<br />
through flowing tears and saying: 'I could forgive the boy, now, if he'd<br />
committed a million<br />
sins!'"<br />
redemption and glory are complete.<br />
As far as Aunt Polly<br />
is concerned. Tom's<br />
Before turning to the culminating episode <strong>of</strong> Tom's piracy, let us<br />
consider it against the background <strong>of</strong> certain alternatives. Tom's favorite<br />
game is that <strong>of</strong> Robin Hood. We see him at it twice, once with Joe Harper<br />
and once with Huck Finn. Joe and Tom play at it regularly and store<br />
their equipment in the woods beyond Cardiff Hill. What they do is, in<br />
fact, to play roles in episodes drawn from the story, just as if it were a<br />
stage production. It is not a game, played to win. It is, rather, a dramatic<br />
ritual. Here we first see Tom's own kind <strong>of</strong> scriptural authority. But Huck<br />
has never heard <strong>of</strong> Robin Hood, and Tom tells him, "Why, he was one<br />
<strong>of</strong> the greatest men that was ever in England and the best. He was a<br />
robber."<br />
Huck asks who he robbed. "Only sheriffs and bishops and rich<br />
people and kings, and such like. But he never bothered the poor. He<br />
square."<br />
loved 'em. He always divided up with 'em perfectly Huck rejoins,<br />
been a brick."<br />
To which Tom replies, "I bet you he<br />
"Well, he must 'a'