All 7 Uses of

compose

in

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The prime feature of the evening was in order, now—original "compositions" by the young ladies.†
Chpt 21

compositions = things created -- typically works of music or writing; or acts of creating such work; or the structures of such work

"Friendship" was one; "Memories of Other Days"; "Religion in History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of Culture"; "Forms of Political Government Compared and Contrasted"; "Melancholy"; "Filial Love"; "Heart Longings," etc., etc. A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy; another was a wasteful and opulent gush of "fine language"; another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and a peculiarity that conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one of them.†
Chpt 21

There is no school in all our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged to close their compositions with a sermon; and you will find that the sermon of the most frivolous and the least religious girl in the school is always the longest and the most relentlessly pious.†
Chpt 21

It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average.†
Chpt 21 *

NOTE:—The pretended "compositions" quoted in this chapter are taken without alteration from a volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a Western Lady"—but they are exactly and precisely after the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much happier than any mere imitations could be.†
Chpt 21

The first composition that was read was one entitled "Is this, then, Life?"†
Chpt 21

This composition was considered to be the very finest effort of the evening.†
Chpt 21

Definitions:

(1) (compose as in: compose a poem)
to write or create something with care -- especially music or a literary work, but could be other things as diverse as a plan or a letter
(2) (compose as in: composed of many parts)
to create something by arranging parts; or to be those parts
(3) (compose as in: compose myself)
to calm someone or settle something
(4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
Specialized senses of compose include typesetting (preparing text for printing). There are many specialized senses of composition where context tells what something is made up from. Finally, in classic literature, compose may have been used to indicate settling a dispute.