With the television broken, the boys are at a loss of what to do. Their parents want to encourage them to read, and Ward recommends "Tom Sawyer". The boys do get enthralled in reading about Tom's adventures. They ask their father if they can embark on adventures like Tom. Thinking it a harmless request, Ward agrees, thinking the boys not making the request in a literal sense. Later, Ward is getting ready to paint the garage doors. When he is unexpectedly called away, Wally and Beaver offer to do the paint job, just like Tom did. Ward lets them do it despite feeling that they may be too young for such a large job. As they come to the realization that painting isn't nearly as fun as they thought, they try to pull a "Tom" on many of their friends to do the paint job for them. The only one who seems at all interested is five year old Bengie Bellamy, who, unsupervised, treats painting like a five year old would.
—Huggo