However, people can say nothing because he has got enough "certified checks" to prove himself. By exchanging property which Tom gets in selling whitewashing privileges, secretly buying tickets for the Sunday-school prize Tom immediately becomes a new hero. Through this situation, Tom reveals himself mischievous, intelligent and cunning sometimes.
Being punished by his Aunt Polly, Tom has to work on Saturday while other children are having holidays. It is a quite hard punishment and he regards it as a torture. Life to him now seems nothing but a burden and his work without spirit. Tom does not want to lose face with other boys so he keeps on the idea of escaping from the work as soon as possible. With such an intelligent and mischievous boy like Tom will never easily surrender. The more hopeless the situation is, the brighter the idea in his mind appears. He then changes the hard task in to a great privilege and considers it as an honor. "Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence everyday?" Moreover, Tom absolutely admits "There is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand that can do it the way that is got to be done". With his intelligent and persuasive words, Tom allows other boy to take over from him for a considerable price. Playing continuously on other boys" aspirations and desires for the whitewashing, Tom quickly become a wealthy boy, just in few hours. Through this situation Tom once more appears to us as a very intelligent and mischievous boy.
2. An imaginative reading boy.
Readers have known about a mischievous and intelligent boy with a lot of different jokes and tricks. At the same time they also know about a boy with adult thinking about behavior. Tom, however, not only takes part in some enterprises called "audacious mischief" by his aunt but also spends much time reading book and giving romantic dreams. This is the most interesting and outstanding characteristic that Mark Twain builds for his favorite character, Tom Sawyer.