The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Chapter 4 Page 12

or five. He once recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forth — a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out and “spread himself.” Only the older pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar’s heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks.

It is possible that Tom’s mental stomach had never really hungered for