A Pale Horse

In chapter 12, Tom is depressed because Becky isn’t at school and Aunt Polly, being an enthusiastic medicinal “experimenter,” seizes the opportunity to apply her knowledge to Tom’s case. Tom, however, is not impressed, saying, “She [Aunt Polly] gathered together her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with ‘hell following after.’” Tom connects Aunt Polly’s behavior with the Apostle John’s report found in REVELATION 6:8, describing the contents of the fourth seal: “…I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hades followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”