By Mark Twain
This familiar coming-of-age story, appearing in the year of our nation's centennial, is set in a rural Missouri town in the 1830s-40s, but has wide appeal. Tom Sawyer is an adventurous 13-year-old who manages to get into a lot of trouble, yet is clever and grows in compassion and wisdom during the course of this story. Tom's clever conniving, for example, results in his friends helping to whitewash his Aunt Polly's fence and earns him enough Bible memory verse tickets to get a free Bible - a ploy that backfires when he is actually asked a question about the Bible ("Name two of Jesus's disciples." "...David and Goliath?"). Tom and his two friends witness a murder in a cemetery, attend their "own funeral", and he gets lost in a cave with his adored Becky Thatcher. All of these adventures will affect Tom and force him to make decisions that show his growing maturity. Tom lived the life that every boy - now or then - would have love to live. Me, too!
A few days ago, I visited the Heritage Museum and Gardens in Sandwich, MA to see their rhododendron display, but also took a look at a special exhibit of 50 objects to highlight the museum's 50th anniversary. Among the prized objects is an original edition of Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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