"TOM!" No answer. Aunt Polly looked under the bed and pulled out nothing but the cat. Tom came in through the garden door with jam on his hands, and she was going to whip him when he cried, "Look behind you, aunt!" She whirled round, and he was over the fence and gone. Saturday morning came, and the world was bright and full of life. Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long brush. The fence was thirty yards long and nine feet high. Life seemed hollow, and existence a burden. Then a great idea came to him, and he began to paint with the air of an artist. Ben Rogers came along, eating an apple. "Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?" said Tom.