Quote 7
The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell -- everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."
"Well, everybody does that way, Huck." (35.7-8)
The Widow's regimen, and, most especially, Tom's defense of it, seems curiously at odds with the vision of boyhood, of specifically American boyhood, that Tom has come to represent.
Quote 8
""Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly -- well, Jim wanted to do it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it --"
"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try." (2.40-1)
Tom's trick, however clever or charming it may be, is still a form of manipulation.
Quote 9
Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric sympathy of love; and by that form was the only vacant place on the girls' side of the school-house. He instantly said:
"I stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn!" (6.118-9)
Here, Tom demonstrates that even telling the truth can be a form of manipulation.