Chapter 4

In this chapter, Mary tries to help Tom memorize Bible verses. But Tom was unable to.

Mr. Walters had set up a ticket system:

2 verses = 1 blue ticket
10 blue tickets = 1 red ticket
10 red tickets = 1 yellow ticket
10 yellow tickets = 1 Bible
.: 2000 verses = 1 Bible

That morning, Tom traded :
1. a piece of lickrish and fish hook for a yellow ticket
2. a couple of white alleys for 3 red tickets

To impress the visitors, Judge Thatcher and his family, Mr. Walters was desperate for a candidate who qualified to receive a Bible.

The only person that qualified was Tom. He had:
9 yellow tickets
9 red tickets
10 blue tickets.

Mr. Walters knew that it was impossible for Tom to have honestly earned these tickets, but he was desperate to impress the Judge.

Judge Thatcher was indeed impressed and gave a speech of the value of such learning. To close, he asked Tom one simple question,

Who were the first two appointed disciples?

Tom was unable to answer this simple question correctly. His response was:

David and Goliath.

This made it clear to everyone that Tom:

dishonestly got the tickets,
was too lazy to try to learn verses
was a trickster who tricked the boys into qualifying for a Bible
liked to impress
doesn' like to work for rewards
likes attention.