“The Cat and the Pain-killer” is one of the episodes from the novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”. Tom Sawyer is a mischievous young boy growing up along the Mississippi river with his aunt Polly and brother Sid. He is up to all sorts of mischief but somehow manages to escape from the punishments. Though he finds the school life miserable, the arrival of Becky Thatcher makes him happy. That happiness does not last long as Becky falls ill and stops coming to school.
At home, his Aunt notices that Tom is disturbed and uninterested in doing anything. So Aunt Polly, who is infatuated with patent medicines, tries them on Tom. She tries all kinds of treatments on Tom to make him cheerful again, but to no avail. Tom being fed up with Aunt Polly’s treatment says that he wants pain-killers. Aunt Polly notices that the medicines are diminishing, though she is not aware that Tom is using them to mend the crack in the sitting room floor.
One day while Tom is mending the crack with the pain-killer, the cat Peter arrives and almost begs to taste the medicine. Tom feeling pity towards the cat gives him a spoonful to taste, on which Peter springs up in the air and keeps jumping and dancing, disturbing the furniture and flower pots. Aunt Polly hearing weird noises enters just in time to see the cat perform summersets and carry some flower pots out the window. The old lady is petrified seeing all the mess and Tom’s uncontrollable laughter. Aunt Polly questions Tom regarding the cat’s behaviour. Tom replies that the cats act like this when they’re having a good time.
Aunt Polly finds the teaspoon and understands that Tom has fed the cat with the medicine. She scolds him for being so cruel to the cat, for which he answers that the cat doesn’t have an aunt like her to take care of it and that he has given the cat the medicine out of pity. Aunt Polly suddenly realizes that if the cat would feel so miserable after taking a small sip of the medicine, how the boy must be feeling. Then she puts her hand on Tom’s head saying that she was only trying to do the best for him. Tom replies that he too was only trying to do the best for the cat. Aunt Polly finally says that she wouldn’t try any more medicines on him.
