Tom Long

“ Tom Long being now a foot-post, with hard travelling had worn his shoes so very thin that he was in great danger to lose soles and all; whereupon Tom came to refresh himself, after which he sent for a shoemaker to bring him a pair of shoes. ”

“ They fought a great fight in the close darkness, claws and fangs, wrenching muscles and surging shoulders, and the cruel knife drinking blood. It was true that some of Long Tom’s best furniture was broken to kindling and his device for closing the door irremediably ruined. There was also the noise of conflict that disturbed the little forest people scurrying on the hill. ”

“ It was seven o’clock when we got into the coupé with him and started for Long Island. Tom talked incessantly, exulting and laughing, but his voice was as remote from Jordan and me as the foreign clamour on the sidewalk or the tumult of the elevated overhead. Human sympathy has its limits, and we were content to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind. Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. ”

“ Away goes the Tally-ho into the darkness.
Tom stands up, and looks back at his father's figure as long as you can see it; and then comes to an anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other preparations for facing the cold three hours before dawn. The guard muffles Tom's feet up in straw, and puts an oat-sack over his knees, but it is not until after breakfast that his tongue is unloosed, and he rubs up his memory, and launches out into a graphic history of all the performances of the Rugby boys on the roads for the last twenty years. ”

“ And there, above all, was Tom Longman. Tom was a big, hulking fellow, good-natured and simple-hearted in the extreme. He was the victim of an intense susceptibility to the girls' charms, joined with an intolerable shyness and self-consciousness when in their presence. From this consuming embarrassment he would seek relief by working like a horse whenever there was anything to do. ”

“ Tom saw abundance of men,—great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried men; long-favored, lank, hard men; and every variety of stubbed-looking, commonplace men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal unconcern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St. Clare.
A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in a checked shirt considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like one who is going actively into a business ”

“ When he had it gathered and tied, what should come up but a big giant, nine foot high, and made a lick of a club at him. Well become Tom, he jumped a-one side, and picked up a ram-pike; and the first crack he gave the big fellow, he made him kiss the clod.
"If you have e'er a prayer," says Tom, "now's the time to say it, before I make fragments of you." [246]
"I have no prayers," says the giant; "but if you spare my life I'll give you that club; and as long as you keep from sin, you'll win every battle you ever fight with it."
Tom made no bones about letting him off ”

“ After Anna's marriage, the Marsh became the home of the two boys, Tom and Fred. Tom was a rather short, good-looking youth, with crisp black hair and long black eyelashes and soft, dark, possessed eyes. He had a quick intelligence. From the High School he went to London to study. He had an instinct for attracting people of character and energy. He gave place entirely to the other person, and at the same time kept himself independent. He scarcely existed except through other people. ”

“ I can die!"
Legree drew in a long breath; and, suppressing his rage, took Tom by the arm, and, approaching his face almost to his, said, in a terrible voice, "Hark'e, Tom!—ye think, 'cause I've let you off before, I don't mean what I say; but, this time, I've made up my mind, and counted the cost. You've always stood it out agin' me: now, I'll conquer ye, or kill ye!—one or t' other. I'll count every drop of blood there is in you, and take 'em, one by one, till ye give up!" ”

“ Tom was somewhat long and lean, with a face also long and always smiling, except when it was making a grimace, an art in which he excelled almost every other blackguard I have heard of. His clothes and hat were seedy, and, for so merry a person, he was wonderfully poor.
Tom Orange’s accomplishments were infinite, he could dance a hornpipe with all the well-known airs and graces of a sailor ”

“ Tom had with him quite a sizable trunk full of clothing, as had most others of them. They were ushered, for the night, into a long room, where many other men, of all ages, sizes, and shades of complexion, were assembled, and from which roars of laughter and unthinking merriment were proceeding.
"Ah, ha! that's right. Go it, boys,—go it!" said Mr. Skeggs, the keeper. "My people are always so merry! Sambo, I see!" he said, speaking approvingly to a burly negro who was performing tricks of low buffoonery, which occasioned the shouts which Tom had heard. ”

“ He thought of how he should make out his gang; he thought of the respective market value of certain supposititious men and women and children who were to compose it, and other kindred topics of the business; then he thought of himself, and how humane he was, that whereas other men chained their “niggers” hand and foot both, he only put fetters on the feet, and left Tom the use of his hands, as long as he behaved well; and he sighed to think how ungrateful human nature was, so that there was even room to doubt whether Tom appreciated his mercies. ”

“ Reluctantly Tom reloaded his weapon and thrust it back into its shoulder holster; regretfully he murmured: "Doggone! We never have any more fun." He turned toward the door.
"Where are you going, dad?"
"I got to see a man; back in an hour. Anybody calls—"
"You know you won't be back in an hour. Where are you going?"
"I got to see—What is it?"
"Bob" hesitated. "I wish you'd stay here. I think Mr. Gray arrived this morning, and I expect him in."
Tom decided that he had made Judge Halloran wait long enough. He should have been in the old rascal's king row by this time. ”

“ What difference does that make, when you're a sport all right? Doesn't keep me from going with the gang, not any more than Tad Whitelaw's big eyebrows, or Spit Castle's long nose."
On occasions when he was left out of "good things" which he would gladly have been in he made Tom come round to his room in the evening for confidence and comfort. Tom never made game of him. There was no one else to whom he could turn with the certainty of being understood. Having an apartment to himself, he could be free in his complaints without fear of interruption. ”

“ It's no favor to set them free."
"But Tom is so steady, industrious, and pious."
"O, you needn't tell me! I've see a hundred like him. He'll do very well, as long as he's taken care of,—that's all."
"But, then, consider," said Miss Ophelia, "when you set him up for sale, the chances of his getting a bad master."
"O, that's all humbug!" said Marie; "it isn't one time in a hundred that a good fellow gets a bad master; most masters are good, for all the talk that is made. ”

“ Tom, now that you're so big. Mr. Guy has had one this long spell back."
It was a lead. In shy unobtrusive ways Pilcher had often shown himself his friend. Tom confessed his yearning for a card if only he knew how to order one.
"I'll show you one of Mr. Guy's. He always has the right thing. I'll find out too where he gets them done. If you'll step in, Mr. Tom...."
As he waited in the dining room, with the good-natured Ansley ancestor smiling down at him, there [Pg 333] floated through Tom's mind a phrase from the Bible as taught by Mrs. Tollivant. "The Lord sent His angel." ”

“ Then, taking possession of the rifle, powder-horn, and bullet-pouch, and thrusting the Indian’s scalping-knife into his belt, and throwing some limbs over the body, that it might not so soon be discovered by his friends, Tom hurried 201 away in the direction of the fort, as Long Hair had suggested. He lingered a moment, however, wishing that he could do something to serve Long Hair, who, he well knew, had uttered that challenging war-cry that saved his life on purpose to call the Indians away from the cave.
But what was he? A mere boy against so many infuriated savages. ”

“ Talents is different, you know. Now, Tom's roarer when there's any thumping or fighting to be done; but at lying he an't good, Tom an't,—ye see it don't come natural to him; but, Lord, if thar's a feller in the country that can swear to anything and everything, and put in all the circumstances and flourishes with a long face, and carry 't through better 'n I can, why, I'd like to see him, that's all! ”

“ The party beneath, now more apparent in the light of the dawn, consisted of our old acquaintances, Tom Loker and Marks, with two constables, and a posse consisting of such rowdies at the last tavern as could be engaged by a little brandy to go and help the fun of trapping a set of niggers.
"Well, Tom, yer coons are farly treed," said one.
"Yes, I see 'em go up right here," said Tom; "and here's a path. I'm for going right up. They can't jump down in a hurry, and it won't take long to ferret 'em out."
"But, Tom, they might fire at us from behind the rocks," said Marks. ”

“ Kenneth Clyde was well known here, and nobody in Saintsbury even heard of the trial of one Tom Johnson in Houston. I have thought it best to go on living my life just as I should have done in any event. ”

“ Yes—the way I’d like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough. No, Tom, I won’t be rich, and I won’t live in them cussed smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I’ll stick to ’em, too. ”

“ But murder will out. The truth, though crushed to earth, will live again. The sun in the heavens has been summoned as a witness. While Tom Johnson was in jail, awaiting trial, an enterprising paper of the place secured several photographs of the prisoner. These our representative found in an old file of the paper. We reproduce below, side by side, the photographs of Tom Johnson, lying under an unexecuted sentence for murder, and of Kenneth Clyde, reform candidate for mayor. They speak for themselves. ”

“ Tom’s army won a great victory, after a long and hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone. ”

“ "The grass is full of ghosts to-night."
"The whole campus is alive with them."
They paused by Little and watched the moon rise, to make silver of the slate roof of Dodd and blue the rustling trees.
"You know," whispered Tom, "what we feel now is the sense of all the gorgeous youth that has rioted through here in two hundred years."
A last burst of singing flooded up from Blair Arch—broken voices for some long parting.
"And what we leave here is more than this class; it's the whole heritage of youth. ”

“ Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; ”

“ It was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody—told it to me because “Jay Gatsby” had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice, and the long secret extravaganza was played out. ”

“ The shape of her head and the turn of her neck and bust was peculiarly noble, and the long golden-brown hair that floated like a cloud around it, the deep spiritual gravity of her violet blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes of golden brown,—all marked her out from other children, and made every one turn and look after her, as she glided hither and thither on the boat. ”

“ But come, Eva," he said; and taking the hand of his daughter, he stepped across the boat, and carelessly putting the tip of his finger under Tom's chin, said, good-humoredly, "Look up, Tom, and see how you like your new master."
Tom looked up. It was not in nature to look into that gay, young, handsome face, without a feeling of pleasure; and Tom felt the tears start in his eyes as he said, heartily, "God bless you, Mas'r!"
"Well, I hope he will. What's your name? Tom? Quite as likely to do it for your asking as mine, from all accounts. Can you drive horses, Tom?" ”

“ The morning-star now stands over the tops of the mountains, and gales and breezes, not of earth, show that the gates of day are unclosing.
The escape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper of Legree to the last degree; and his fury, as was to be expected, fell upon the defenceless head of Tom. When he hurriedly announced the tidings among his hands, there was a sudden light in Tom's eye, a sudden upraising of his hands, that did not escape him. He saw that he did not join the muster of the pursuers. He thought of forcing him to do it ”

“ Tom had a sober, benevolent smile, and seemed, in his quiet way, to be enjoying the fun quite as much as his little mistress. He lifted his eyes, when he saw his master, with a half-deprecating, apologetic air.
"How can you let her?" said Miss Ophelia.
"Why not?" said St. Clare.
"Why, I don't know, it seems so dreadful!"
"You would think no harm in a child's caressing a large dog, even if he was black; but a creature that can think, and reason, and feel, and is immortal, you shudder at; confess it, cousin. I know the feeling among some of you northerners well enough. ”