A whitewashed fence he cons the neighborhood into painting, a graveyard at midnight, an island of runaway pirates, and a cave with a murderer still inside it — Twain pours a whole Mississippi boyhood into one St. Petersburg summer. Tom lies, brawls, courts Becky Thatcher, and blunders into real danger and real gold, growing a conscience almost against his will. The book that taught American fiction to talk like a boy, and made plain mischief sound like freedom.