Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn

INTRO:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is an 1876 classic novel about a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. The story is set in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain lived. Orphaned at a young age, Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother Sid. He wreaks mischief everywhere he goes, turning the schoolroom or church into upside-down pandemonium, with such treasures as pinching beetles, dead cats or frogs, or tick races.

With the Mississippi River right at his back door and friends who are willing to try anything, Tom Sawyer can't seem to resist a good adventure! From finding a treasure of gold coins, to whitewashing a fence, or spending 3 days lost in a cave, or surviving as a pirate for 3 days on an island, to escaping villan Joe, or attending his own funeral, Tom, Huck, and his comrades are always off on thrilling escapades.

CACHE DESCRIPTION:

This 5-Stage Multi is a journey 150 years back in time, into this Classic Tale. Each stage recaps one of their wild adventures with a field puzzle to solve. Let your imagination have fun with it and enjoy the ride.

NOTE: This park is usually heavy with muggle traffic so the stages are NOT in plain sight to protect them from vandalism, thus may take a bit of sleuthing. The first 3 are above ground level and may require some wading during spring and summer. The creek is mostly dry in fall and winter. Also, because of muggle abundance, PLEASE take care to re-hide well.

Scattered throughout this opening first story are clues to begin the journey of Tom and his friends on their escapades to the GC Final. And so begins the fun.

STORY #1 – Treasures for Tickets

One afternoon, Tom dirties his good clothes in a fight with the Model Boy of the village and is made to whitewash one hundred feet of fence the next day as punishment. He cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the “privilege” of doing his work. He then trades the treasures for Sunday School tickets - which one normally receives for memorizing verses, redeeming them for a Bible - much to the surprise and bewilderment of the superintendent who thought "it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises—a dozen would strain his capacity, without a doubt." For you see, each verse was rewarded in small blue tickets, each with a passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of the recitation. Ten blue tickets equaled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red tickets equaled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way— it was the patient work of two years— and a boy of German parentage had won four or five.

Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff hill, beyond the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.

Tom appeared in the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a loon handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow and existence but a burden. He sat down on a tree-box discouraged, and contemplated a plan. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work – the very thought of it burnt him like fire. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration.

One by one, the friends drifted by. Some came by to jeer but remained to whitewash. Each one was systematically convinced of the huge amount of fun that could be “bought” – treasures in exchange for the rare opportunity at this extraordinary treat. As the day wore on, Tom had accumulated an apple, a kite in good repair, a dead rat and a string to swing it with. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had gained 12 marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar – but no dog – a handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated old window sash.

He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while, plenty of company, and the fence had two coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn’t run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. He now comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

At Sabbath-school the following day, Tom instituted his “plan” – trading treasures for tickets. Only the older pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar's heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks. It is possible that Tom's mental stomach had never really hungered for one of those prizes, but unquestionably his entire being had for many a day longed for the glory and the éclat that came with it. Finally at the last moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, [way more than the required twenty], and demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But there was no getting around it— here were the certified checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy— but those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.

Tom stood before the Judge, his heart quaking as the great man patted his head, calling him a fine little man. “And now you wouldn't mind telling me and this lady some of the things you've learned for we are proud of little boys that learn. Now, no doubt you know the names of all the twelve disciples. Won't you tell us the names of the first two that were appointed?" Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed, now, and his eyes fell. The audience waited. Tom still hung fire. Finally he stated in full volume, DAVID AND GOLIAH!”

Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.

How many treasures did Tom collect from his whitewashing?
How many feet of fence did he get painted?
How many tickets were needed to earn a Bible?
How many Purple tickets did Tom have?
How many yellow tickets did Tom have?
How may coats of whitewash were applied?

Take the answers in order and fill in the blanks: Then head off to find Aunt Polly’s house with its shiny new fence, which is Stage #1

N 39° _ _. _ _ _' W 105°_ _. _ _ _'

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