1 Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high.
2 He flew along unfrequented alleys, and shortly found himself at his aunt's back fence.
3 Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it, grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer.
4 He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit.
5 But his face lit up, right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she disappeared.
6 It had a crazy board fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the time, but stood upright nowhere.
7 When she found the entire fence white-washed, and not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable.
8 There was a whiz as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the fence and shot away in the gloom.
9 They raged around Sid like a hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone.
10 Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged.
11 There in the middle of the moonlit valley below them stood the "ha'nted" house, utterly isolated, its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the roof caved in.
12 He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions.