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Chapter 3: Saturday Morning
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Good Night, Mr. Tom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Biological Family vs. Chosen Family
Civilians in Wartime
Grief and Healing
Talent and Community
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Tom and Willie ride Tom’s horse-drawn cart to the blacksmith’s, where Tom unhitches his horse, Dobbs, and ties her up in a shed. Tom and Willie head to a newspaper stand, where a headline reads, “Poland Invaded!” Inside, as Tom buys tobacco, he sees Willie looking at comics and barks at him to select a comic and a candy for himself. Willie, who has never been allowed to choose something for himself before, cautiously picks a lollipop and then reminds Tom that he can’t read. Tom gruffly offers to read the comic to Willie after his Bible story—and feels shocked at his own willingness to disturb his 40-year routine. Willie picks a comic, and they continue doing errands.
Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939; the newspaper headline announcing this fact reminds readers that this scene takes place just a day after the invasion, which started World War II (1939–1945). Tom’s simultaneous generosity toward Willie and gruffness with him indicate how unsettled Tom is by his fast-growing attachment to Willie. It also indicates how that attachment is quickly changing his own previously antisocial behavior.
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As Tom and Willie walk to the draper’s shop, they see young soldiers and newly evacuated children near the railway station. Inside the draper’s, Tom gives the draper a list of materials for Mrs. Fletcher, explaining that Willie only has the clothes he’s wearing. When the draper brings out various colors of corduroy, Tom tells Willie to pick two. Willie, hesitating, picks green and navy. He loves red, but his mother has told him that red is “sinful.” After the draper has wrapped up the corduroy, Tom and Willie go to the shoe store, where Tom gets Willie a good pair of leather boots. Willie is shocked that the boots are for him.
Willie’s love of the color red hints at an artistic sensibility, while his mother’s claim that red is “sinful” suggests that she holds idiosyncratic and expansive ideas about what counts as a sin. Willie’s shock that Tom would buy him boots shows, yet again, how materially and emotionally deprived Willie’s abusive childhood has been.
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After Tom and Willie exit the draper’s, Willie points to a paint shop. Tom feels sudden sadness: the paint shop was his wife Rachel’s favorite, and he hasn’t gone back inside since her death. He asks whether Willie wants to look. When Willie nods, Tom agrees that he can look in the window, but that’s it. They go over. As Willie stares lovingly at the art supply display in the window, Tom recalls how much Rachel loved colors and would talk about painting the sky. When Willie begins drawing in the condensation on the store window, Tom harrumphs and walks away to the library. Willie hurries after him.
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In the library, Tom approaches the librarian, Miss Emilia Thorne, and says that he wants to sign Willie up at the library. Miss Thorne exclaims in shock that Tom has a child with him, but before she can mention Tom’s ill temper, she changes what she was about to say: “You’re . . . so busy.” Inwardly, Miss Thorne thinks that Tom always acts too busy to engage in community activities or prepare for the onrushing war. Feeling awkward at asking for a favor, Tom requests that Miss Thorne select for Willie a couple picture books and a book that Willie might like Tom to read to him.
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As Miss Thorne prepares Willie’s library card, Tom steps outside the library. People are standing and talking nervously in little knots in the town square. Tom glances at the art store, tells himself he’s too busy, and rushes off on his other errands. Yet on his way back to the library, he recalls that it’s been 40 years since he entered the art store. Though he hesitates at the sound of the bell on its door, he walks inside.
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Tom, with a new parcel, finds Willie in the library and tells him it’s time to leave. Willie, holding a picture book, points to a letter and asks Tom whether it’s an O. Tom says it is and asks whether Willie has learned his alphabet. Willie says he almost has, nervously asks whether Tom will help him, and waits for Tom to hit him—his mother always told him not to ask for help. Tom agrees to help, suggesting he can ask Willie’s teacher what Willie needs to practice. On their way out of the library, Miss Thorne gives them Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Inwardly, she thinks that Willie and Tom make an “odd couple,” and she plans to gossip about them.
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At home, Tom unwraps a parcel, shows Willie his new pajamas, and asks whether he’ll sleep in his bed that night. When Willie suggests that beds are “for dead people,” Tom says that he’s slept in his own bed for more than 40 years without dying. They eat, and then Tom tells Willie the story of Noah’s Ark again and reads him “the daring exploits of Pecos Bill,” the hero of Willie’s comic. Afterward, Tom remakes Willie’s bed with a rubber sheet over the mattress in case Willie wets the bed again. When Willie asks whether Tom is angry, Tom says no: Sammy used to pee everywhere too. He explains that creatures need time to adjust to new homes. Willie, exhausted, falls asleep thinking about the boy he saw in the post office (Zach).
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