After seeing the freshly painted fence, Aunt Polly decided to let Tom play outdoors for the rest of the afternoon.
The first thing Tom wanted to do was get revenge on Sid for telling Aunt Polly about his collar.
So Tom waited by the fence and ambushed his half brother with balls made of dried-up mud.
Before Aunt Polly could rush to Sid's rescue, Tom managed to hit him with six or seven balls.
Sid screamed in fear and pain.Then Tom jumped over the fence and was gone.
When Tom arrived at the town square a few minutes later, a group of boys was already there, ready to play army games.
Tom and his best friend, Joe Harper, were appointed as generals, and they commanded their armies all afternoon.
As the sun began to set, the boys counted their "dead" and "wounded," and it was determined that Tom had won a great battle.
Joe and Tom shook hands and agreed to meet next Saturday for another battle.
On his way home, Tom spied a new girl.
He thought the new girl was lovely, with blue eyes and braided blond hair.
At the sight of this new angel, the love Tom had pledged to a girl named Amy Lawrence instantly vanished.
Tom soon began to show off for the new girl.
He balanced a stick on his nose, and he walked up and down the street where they both lived.
When the girl reached her house, she halted and looked over at Tom for only a second.
But it was enough to encourage Tom.
After she went inside, Tom lingered near her house, hoping to see her one more time.
But the pretty new girl never reappeared.
Still, Tom returned home in high spirits.
His aunt scolded him for throwing mud balls at Sid, but Tom didn't care.
When his aunt hit him for stealing sugar from the sugar bowl, Tom didn't care.
He just smiled and said, "You never hit Sid when he takes sugar."
"Sid doesn't torment me the way you do," she reminded him.
That night Tom went to bed with the new girl on his mind.
He was determined to devise a way to get her to notice him.
The next morning Aunt Polly forced Tom to put on his Sunday suit for church.
After a quick breakfast, she escorted Tom to church to make sure he attended Sunday school.
The day's lesson consisted of memorizing five verses of the Bible, but Tom was having a problem concentrating.
At last the lesson ended, and Tom and the other students had a fifteen-minute break before the church service began.
Although Tom had not bothered to memorize the five verses, he had finally devised a plan to make the new girl interested in him.
The other children had paid Tom to let them paint, so now his pockets overflowed with marbles, candies, fishhooks, and other goodies.
Tom decided to use his new wealth to buy "verse recitation" tickets.
These tickets were rewards for students who correctly recited verses from the Bible.
For every two lines of verse correctly recited, students were given one blue ticket.
Ten blue tickets equaled one red ticket; ten red tickets equaled one yellow ticket.
For ten yellow tickets, a student could earn a Bible.
A Bible for reciting two thousand lines of verse!
Only older students were able to earn a Bible because it took years of saving tickets.
Tom didn't want a Bible, but he did want to win the new girl's heart.
To win her heart, he had decided that he must seem like a better person than the other boys.
In church, the moment to impress the new girl finally came.
First the minister asked all the smartest and most studious children how many tickets they had.
None of them had enough for a Bible yet.
"Does anyone have enough tickets for a Bible?" asked the minister.
To the shock of everyone, Tom stood up.
Then he proudly marched forward to bring his tickets to the minister.