Tom then exchanges the tickets with the minister for a prized Bible, despite being one of the worst students in the Sunday school and knowing almost nothing of Scripture, eliciting envy from the students and a mixture of pride and shock from the adults. Later, Tom trades the trinkets with other students for various denominations of tickets, obtained at the local Sunday school for memorizing verses of Scripture. In one of the most famous scenes in American literature, Tom cleverly persuades the various neighborhood children to trade him small trinkets and treasures for the 'privilege' of doing his tedious work, using reverse psychology to convince them it is an enjoyable activity.
A fun-loving boy, Tom skips school to go swimming and is made to whitewash his aunt's fence for the entirety of the next day, Saturday, as punishment. Petersburg, Missouri, sometime in the 1840s. Tom Sawyer, an orphan, lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother Sid in the fictional town of St. Illustration from the 1876 edition by artist True Williams.
