Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy

Tom Sawyer: Hero of Middle America 215
that, moreover, his purposes are fulfilled and his goodness made manifest,
in the next world as well as in this one. Tom's expectations are confined
strictly to this world, and we can see that science and superstition in a
kind of fluid mixture are reshaping the traditional beliefs of St. Petersburg.
Aunt PoUy, although a traditionalist in religion, subscribed to all the new
"health"
periodicals and "phrenological frauds"
and made Tom their
victim whenever she deemed his health in need of assistance. Aunt Polly's
traditional faith does not protect her from these incursions of pseudo
science, any more than it protects Tom from wart cures. In Aunt Polly's
decisions to "cure"
Tom with the water treatment, the sitz baths, the
"painkiller"
blister plasters, and finally the (which was probably raw
whiskey), both the ailment and the cure are probably as imaginary as the
warts and the wart cure. In this respect the triumph of imagination over
experience is no less in the new than in the old dispensation.
We can see that in Tom Sawyer's St. Petersburg law, religion, science,
and superstition are moving in the direction of a new order in which self-
preservation in this world replaces salvation in the next as the dominating
human concern. All Tom's superstitions are ways of recognizing and
evading or controUing threats to his person or his property. Although he
believes the devils are coming to take Hoss Williams, there is no mention
of the hell or hell-fire awaiting the victim. The only allusion to future
punishment there is none whatever to future reward is when he con
templates the fate of Jimmy Hodges, "lately
released,"
and thinks he
might be willing to go too "if he only had a clean Sunday school
record."
When the stray dog howls nearby as the boys flee the murder scene, they
reckon they're "goners."
Again, Tom momentarily regrets his Sunday
school record, but only because of the conviction of doom that has seized
him. Elements of the oldtime religion thus survive in Tom, but only as
part of the new religion of self-preservation in this world. That is, they
appear, along with his superstitions, as elements of his wariness in dealing
with the supernatural as one among the threats to his personal safety.
Tom and Huck are drawn to the graveyard at midnight, ostensibly by
the dead-cat wart cure but in fact by the secret exigencies of modern
medicine. There they witness the murder of the young doctor. They
become the guardians of an important truth,
of the law and (to a degree) the safety of the community
upon which both the justice
depend. Not even
Muff Potter knows the facts about the murder, because he was drunk and
unconscious when it was committed. The boys are terrified and swear an
oath, written out by Tom on a pine shingle, that "they will keep mum
about this and they wish they may drop down dead in their tracks if they
rot."
ever tell and Huck admires Tom's facility in writing and takes a brass
pin to prick his flesh. But Tom stops him and insists on using one of the
clean needles he carries for the sewing of his shirt collar. There is a
danger of poisoning from the pin, he explains to Huck. We can see, in
this informative sidelight, the beginning of Tom's transition from super
stition to science. Although invoking the powers of darkness by their oath,