He never seemed to notice that these were the same five foolish virgins that he had been hearing about every Sunday for months.
I always got my tickets and exchanged them for a book.

They were pretty dreary books, for there was not a bad boy in the entire bookcase.

They were _all_ good boys and good girls and drearily uninteresting, but they were better society than none, and I was glad to have their company and disapprove of it.
[Sidenote: (1849.)] Twenty years ago Mr.Richmond had become possessed of Tom Sawyer's cave in the hills three miles from town, and had made a tourist-resort of it.
In 1849 when the gold-seekers were streaming through our little town of Hannibal, many of our grown men got the gold fever, and I think that all the boys had it.

On the Saturday holidays in summer-time we used to borrow skiffs whose owners were not present and go down the river three miles to the cave hollow (Missourian for "valley"), and there we staked out claims and pretended to dig gold, panning out half a dollar a day at first; two or three times as much, later, and by and by whole fortunes, as our imaginations became inured to the work.

Stupid and unprophetic lads! We were doing this in play and never suspecting.