Aunt Polly's assessment of Tom's character conveys the tone of Twain's wonderfully droll and idyllic picture of smalltown life in rural Missouri before the American Civil War. Living with his respectable nut gullible aunt and dogged by his nemesis the villainous Injun Joe, loveable rascal Tom embarks on a series of boyhood adventures, which include witnessing a murder in a graveyard at dead of night, running away to become a pirate and hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house. Twain depicts Tom as a quick-witted hero who weaves his way in and out of trouble, aided and abetted by his friend Huck Finn. Twains's first novel, and an American classic by the time of his death, Tom Sawyer remains the best loved of all his books.