Приключения Тома Сойера: адаптированный текст + задания. Уровень B1

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Saturday morning came, and all the summer world was bright and fresh. There was a song in every heart and a smile on every face. But Tom was not very happy when he appeared in the street with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. When he looked at the fence, so long and high, he felt depressed.

Then he saw Jim, a slave boy, who was running out of the gate with a bucket. Tom himself had always hated bringing water from the town pump. But it seemed better than whitewashing. Tom said:

‘I say, Jim, I’ll bring the water if you whitewash a part of the fence.

Jim shook his head and said:

‘I can’t, master Tom. Your aunt said you had to do it all. She’ll be angry if she learns that I helped you.’

When the boys noticed Aunt Polly coming out of the house Jim ran away with his bucket and Tom started whitewashing. But his energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had planned for this day.

At this dark and hopeless moment he found a way out.

He took up his brush and went to work. Ben Rogers, his friend was walking along the street eating an apple. From time to time he produced sounds: ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he came closer, he called:

‘Tom!’

No answer. Tom had been whitewashing, then he looked at the fence with the eye of an artist. Tom’s mouth watered for the apple, but he continued working. Ben said:

‘Hello, old chap!’ Tom turned to Ben.

‘Why, it’s you, Ben! I didn’t notice you.

‘I’m going swimming. Would you like to join me? Oh, I see, you can’t go, you have to work!’

‘What do you call work?’

‘Why, isn’t THAT work?’

Tom continued his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:

‘Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. All I know is it suits Tom Sawyer.’

‘Don’t say you LIKE it. I won’t believe you!’

The brush continued to move.

‘Like it? Well, does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?’

That put the thing in a new light.

‘Tom, let ME whitewash a little.’

‘If it was the back fence I wouldn’t mind and aunt Polly wouldn’t. But it’s the front fence; it must be done very carefully. There isn’t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it should be done.’

‘Oh, let me just try. Only just a little. I’ll give you the core of my apple.