" The solemnity of his manner in administering the law
won for him, among his neighbours, the title of Judge.
One need but recall the scenes in which Tom Sawyer was born and bred to
realize in its actuality the model from which these scenes were drawn.
"Sam was always a good-hearted boy," his mother once remarked, "but he
was a very wild and mischievous one, and, do what we would, we could
never make him go to school. This used to trouble his father and me
dreadfully, and we were convinced that he would never amount to as much
in the world as his brothers, because he was not near so steady and
sober-minded as they were." At school, he "excelled only in spelling";
outside of school he was the prototype of his own Huckleberry Finn,
mischievous and prankish, playing truant whenever the opportunity
afforded. "Often his father would start him off to school," his mother
once said, "and in a little while would follow him to ascertain his
whereabouts. There was a large stump on the way to the schoolhouse, and
Sam would take his position behind that, and as his father went past
would gradually circle around it in such a way as to keep out of sight.
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