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Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer
Capítulo 12, Página 1
One
of
the
reasons
why
Tom’s
mind
had
drifted
away
from
its
secret
troubles
was,
that
it
had
found
a
new
and
weighty
matter
to
interest
itself
about.
Becky
Thatcher
had
stopped
coming
to
school.
Tom
had
struggled
with
his
pride
a
few
days,
and
tried
to
“whistle
her
down
the
wind,”
but
failed.
He
began
to
find
himself
hanging
around
her
father’s
house,
nights,
and
feeling
very
miserable.
She
was
ill.
What
if
she
should
die!
There
was
distraction
in
the
thought.
He
no
longer
took
an
interest
in
war,
nor
even
in
piracy.
The
charm
of
life
was
gone;
there
was
nothing
but
dreariness
left.
He
put
his
hoop
away,
and
his
bat;
there
was
no
joy
in
them
any
more.
His
aunt
was
concerned.
She
began
to
try
all
manner
of
remedies
on
him.
She
was
one
of
those
people
who
are
infatuated
with
patent
medicines
and
all
new-fangled
methods
of
producing
health
or
mending
it.
She
was
an
inveterate
experimenter
in
these
things.
When
something
fresh
in
this
line
came
out
she
was
in
a
fever,
right
away,
to
try
it;
not
on
herself,
for
she
was
never
ailing,
but
on
anybody
else
that
came
handy.
She
was
a
subscriber
for
all
the
“Health”
periodicals
and
phrenological
frauds;
and
the
solemn
ignorance
they
were
inflated
with
was
breath
to
her
nostrils.
All
the
“rot”
they
contained
about
ventilation,
and
how
to
go
to
bed,
and
how
to
get
up,
and
what
to
eat,
and
what
to
drink,
and
how
much
exercise
to
take,
and
what
frame
of
mind
to
keep
one’s
self
in,
and
what
sort
of
clothing
to
wear,
was
all
gospel
to
her,
and
she
never
observed
that
her
health-journals
of
the
current
month
customarily
upset
everything
they
had
recommended
the
month
before.
She
was
as
simple-hearted
and
honest
as
the
day
was
long,
and
so
she
was
an
easy
victim.
She
gathered
together
her
quack
periodicals
and
her
quack
medicines,
and
thus
armed
with
death,
went
about
on
her
pale
horse,
metaphorically
speaking,
with
“hell
following
after.”
But
she
never
suspected
that
she
was
not
an
angel
of
healing
and
the
balm
of
Gilead
in
disguise,
to
the
suffering
neighbors.
The
water
treatment
was
new,
now,
and
Tom’s
low
condition
was
a
windfall
to
her.
She
had
him
out
at
daylight
every
morning,
stood
him
up
in
the
wood-shed
and
drowned
him
with
a
deluge
of
cold
water;
then
she
scrubbed
him
down
with
a
towel
like
a
file,
and
so
brought
him
to;
then
she
rolled
him
up
in
a
wet
sheet
and
put
him
away
under
blankets
till
she
sweated
his
soul
clean
and
“the
yellow
stains
of
it
came
through
his
pores”—as
Tom
said.
Yet
notwithstanding
all
this,
the
boy
grew
more
and
more
melancholy
and
pale
and
dejected.
She
added
hot
baths,
sitz
baths,
shower
baths,
and
plunges.
The
boy
remained
as
dismal
as
a
hearse.
She
began
to
assist
the
water
with
a
slim
oatmeal
diet
and
blister-plasters.
She
calculated
his
capacity
as
she
would
a
jug’s,
and
filled
him
up
every
day
with
quack
cure-alls.
Tom
had
become
indifferent
to
persecution
by
this
time.
This
phase
filled
the
old
lady’s
heart
with
consternation.
This
indifference
must
be
broken
up
at
any
cost.
Now
she
heard
of
Pain-killer
for
the
first
time.
She
ordered
a
lot
at
once.
She
tasted
it
and
was
filled
with
gratitude.
It
was
simply
fire
in
a
liquid
form.
She
dropped
the
water
treatment
and
everything
else,
and
pinned
her
faith
to
Pain-killer.
She
gave
Tom
a
teaspoonful
and
watched
with
the
deepest
anxiety
for
the
result.
Her
troubles
were
instantly
at
rest,
her
soul
at
peace
again;
for
the
“indifference”
was
broken
up.
The
boy
could
not
have
shown
a
wilder,
heartier
interest,
if
she
had
built
a
fire
under
him.
Tom
felt
that
it
was
time
to
wake
up;
this
sort
of
life
might
be
romantic
enough,
in
his
blighted
condition,
but
it
was
getting
to
have
too
little
sentiment
and
too
much
distracting
variety
about
it.
So
he
thought
over
various
plans
for
relief,
and
finally
hit
upon
that
of
professing
to
be
fond
of
Pain-killer.
He
asked
for
it
so
often
that
he
became
a
nuisance,
and
his
aunt
ended
by
telling
him
to
help
himself
and
quit
bothering
her.
If
it
had
been
Sid,
she
would
have
had
no
misgivings
to
alloy
her
delight;
but
since
it
was
Tom,
she
watched
the
bottle
clandestinely.
She
found
that
the
medicine
did
really
diminish,
but
it
did
not
occur
to
her
that
the
boy
was
mending
the
health
of
a
crack
in
the
sitting-room
floor
with
it.
One
day
Tom
was
in
the
act
of
dosing
the
crack
when
his
aunt’s
yellow
cat
came
along,
purring,
eyeing
the
teaspoon
avariciously,
and
begging
for
a
taste.
Tom
said:
“Don’t
ask
for
it
unless
you
want
it,
Peter.”
But
Peter
signified
that
he
did
want
it.
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Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer — C1 Inglés | Cuentana