Tag Archives: Becky Thatcher

Mr. B. and I have been enjoying reading Mark Twain’s famous book as a bedtime story. I remembered the part where Tom persuades his buddies that whitewashing Aunt Polly’s fence for him is a far better thing to do than whatever else they might have in mind. But I forgot the part when Tom and Huck and Joe Harper run off to play pirates, and then attend their own funeral. I’d also forgotten when Tom finally decides to testify for Muff Potter by revealing Injun Joe as the murderer. Then Tom and Huck spend the rest of the book worrying about Joe coming back to take revenge on them. Mr. B. doesn’t understand Tom’s flirtations with Becky Thatcher, why a boy would want to waste time with a girl, but he has wisely decided not to worry about it. It’s a different world, antebellum Missouri, without processed food for sale on every corner, not everyone having a watch to tell what time it is, misbehavior in school getting you a whipping, and toys being things like old doorknobs, fish hooks and marbles.