MONDAY MORNING – Mark Twain

Mark Twain is a great American novelist. His real name, before he

adopted Mark Twain as his pen name, was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His
novels the adventures of tom sawyer and the adventure of Huckleberry
Finn appeal to children as well as the old alike. This extract is from The
adventures of Tom sawyer, which narrates at length the mischievous deeds
of Tom at home, at school and outside. Tom is a boy of eight and lives with his
aunt, Aunt Polly. Along with Tom, his brother Sid and sister Mary also live
with their aunt. Aunt Polly friend it very difficult to make Tom behave properly.
In this account we come across a humorous episode about Tom trying irrelevant
excuses to stay at home from school. Still in bed on a Monday morning Tom
thinks of an idea to cheat his aunty. He complains to her of great pain on a
toe, but finally gets exposed foolishly. Then he complains to her that he has
trouble with his loose tooth, but Aunt Polly is too clever and outwits Tom.

Tom a happy carefree young boy hated Monday morning. He felt

miserable when he thought of going to school. To him, school was another
week of slow suffering school was like a prison to Tom when he was kept in
captivity.

Tom wished he was sick, so that he could stay at home. He started

inspecting himself to see if he could find any ailment. He felt as if he had toe
pain and began to encourage it, but it was in vain, the pain was just imaginary.

On further inspection, he discovered that one of his upper front teeth was
loose. But he knew if he told Aunt Polly, about it she would at once pull it out.
So he decided to keep the tooth in reserve for the present.

Tom remembered that his doctor had told him about a man who had lost a
finger due to a certain disease. He looked at his sore toe and thought this was
his chance. He started to groan his brother Sid who was sleeping near to him
was, unconscious of all this Tom wanted to wake him up. So he groaned louder
and louder. Finally Sid woke up and when he saw Tom’s condition he was
frightened.

Tom presented that he was dying. Sid ran downstairs and informed Aunt
Polly who came running along with Mary. She was really concerned and asked
him what was wrong. Tom replied that his sore toes mortified. His aunt
understood Tom’s real sickness and started to laugh. Tom felt foolish and said
in his pain he had forgotten his loose tooth.

Aunt Polly at once pulled it out she tied one end of the silk thread to
Tom’s teeth and the other end to the bed post. She then seized a pen of burning
coals and thrust it almost into the boy.