At last the frantic sufferer sheered from its course, and sprang into its master's lap; he flung it out of the window, and the voice of distress quickly thinned away and died in the distance.
By this time the whole church was red-faced and suffocating with suppressed laughter, and the sermon had come to a dead standstill.
The discourse was resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all possibility of impressiveness being at an end; for even the gravest sentiments were constantly being received with a smothered burst of unholy mirth, under cover of some remote pew-back, as if the poor parson had said a rarely facetious thing.
It was a genuine relief to the whole congregation when the ordeal was over and the benediction pronounced.
Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking to himself that there was some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of variety in it.
He had but one marring thought; he was willing that the dog should play with his pinchbug, but he did not think it was upright in him to carry it off.
CHAPTER VI
MONDAY morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday morning always found him so-because it began another week's slow suffering in school. He generally began that day with wishing he had had no intervening holiday, it made the going into captivity and fetters again so much more odious.
Tom lay thinking.
Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was sick; then he could stay home from school.