Monday Morning

On Monday morning, Tom finds himself in bed and wanting to avoid school that morning. Eagerly, he attempts to avoid school by "playing" sick, groaning and moaning enough to wake Sid, who is sleeping by his side. Once Aunt Polly comes to check on Tom's ailments, he tells her: "Oh Auntie, my sore toe's mortified." After Aunt Polly tells Tom to "shut up that nonsense," Tom then proceeds to tell her about his sore, loose tooth, hoping that maybe it will provide him with an excuse to skip school. Aunt Polly simply pulls out his tooth and sends Tom off to school without another word.
On his way to school, Tom stops to talk to Huckleberry Finn, the "juvenile pariah" of the town admired by all children for his aloofness and hated by all mothers for his bad manners. He comes and goes as he pleases, an orphan of-sorts who doesn't have the duty of going to school or completing chores. Huckleberry is dressed in cast-off clothes: a wide-brimmed hat, trousers with only one-suspender, baggy pants, and a worn coat. Tom, who was forbidden to play with Huck, begins to discuss the correct way to cure warts; Huck, who holds a dead cat in a burlap sack, is planning on entering a cemetery at midnight to perform a witch's ritual to cure warts. Both boys discuss the merits of various superstitions and strange chants before they agree to meet later that night to go to the cemetery together.
After trading his tooth for a tick and saying goodbye to Huck, Tom races to school. Knowing that his punishment for tardiness will be to sit on the girls' section of the schoolhouse, Tom explains his lateness by saying he stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn, for the only vacant girls seat was next to the blonde, pig-tailed girl that Tom has fallen in love with: Becky Thatcher. After a period of flirtatious exhibition, Tom writes "I love you" on his slate, which is returned with Becky's pleasure. The two agree to stay at school for dinner so that Tom can teach Becky how to draw. The remaining time...