I still don't get the whole cat joke that the school boys pulled on their teacher.  I don't see how the audience didn't see the boys lowering the cat, but whatever.  Tom looked at that prank as the start of fun summer vacation.  Tom joined what's called the new order of Cadets of Temperance.  The book doesn't describe what this group thing is at all.  It just says how the rules of being a part of this was that there was no drinking or swearing aloud.  Tom had a hard time with this because he was used to swearing and drinking since he supposedly does it all the time.  But then finally, Tom couldn't take it anymore, so he pulled out of the group.  But then he no longer had any desire to do those things since it wasn't against the rules anymore.  Then it goes on to talk about how Tom's summer was really boring and a big dissapointment.  Then he ended up getting the measles, and was bed ridden for two or three weeks.  He got better and started to go to some of his friends' parties but he was still having a lame summer.  Another thing that had added to it was that his true love/enemy was out of town for the summer.  He then goes through a weird phase where thinks that he will not be saved when he dies because he is a really bad sinner.  He sees how all of his friends are being righteous by either doing service or reading scriptures.  Even his "wicked" friend, Huckleberry Finn was quoting scripture.

When the school master had seen that his book was torn, he immediatley scanned his classroom to look for a guilty face.  Tom knew that Becky had torn it, and did not wish to see her whipped.  Tom wanted to say that he did it and take Becky's punishment for her.  And that is just what he did.  Tom yelled out loud that it was him that had torn the book, and he recieved a whipping for it.  He then had to stay after school for a couple of hours.  Afterwards, he left the school and sure enough, Becky was out side waiting for him.  She complimented him for being so "noble".  It was getting towards the end of school now, and I guess every year, before school ends, the school has examinations.  This is where the parents and other family members of the students come to the school and listen to each student recite something that they had learned that year.  Also during this time, a group of boys, including Tom Sawyer, were trying to think of some way that they could get revenge on their schoolmaster for he cruelty that he showed against them.  On the day of the examinations, each student got up and recited things.  Tom tried to, but was overcome with stage-fright, and was not able to finish his speech.  After these were all done, the teacher stood up to go and draw a map the U.S. on the blackboard so that the students could show all of the geography that they had learned that hear.  Now, I did'nt totally understand this part, but what I got from it was that the boys that wanted to get revnge on the teacher ended up going through with their plan.  What they did was get a cat and tie him to a string.  Then they somehow lowered it from the ceiling.  Now, of course the cat is way scared, so he is going to try and grab onto anything that he can get his paws on.  Well the boys knew this and so they lowered the cat near the teacher's head, and the cat attempted to grab for his head, but only caught hold of his wig.  Then the boys pulled the cat back up.