How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"You don't know me. Least you don't know all about that thing. 'Tain't robbery altogether -- it's revenge!" and a wicked light flamed in his eyes. "I'll need your help in it. When it's finished -- then Texas. Go home to your Nance and your kids, and stand by till you hear from me." (26.78)
Tom Sawyer is set at a time when Texas was considered wild and unsettled, a perfect place for hiding from the law.
Quote #8
When [Becky] pleaded grace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift that whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie -- a lie that was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to breast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet! (35.3)
By the end of the book, Tom has attained the status of an American hero, at least in the eyes of Judge Thatcher.
Quote #9
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.