Project Gutenberg's The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, by Albert Bigelow Paine

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Title: The Boys' Life of Mark Twain

Author: Albert Bigelow Paine

Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #3463]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN ***

Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger

THE BOYS' LIFE OF MARK TWAIN

By Albert Bigelow Paine

CONTENTS

          PREFACE
I. THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS
II. THE NEW HOME, AND UNCLE JOHN QUARLES'S FARM
III. SCHOOL
IV. EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL
V. TOM SAWYER AND HIS BAND
VI. CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS
VII. THE APPRENTICE
VIII. ORION'S PAPER
IX. THE OPEN ROAD
X. A WIND OF CHANCE
XI. THE LONG WAY To THE AMAZON
XII. RENEWING AN OLD AMBITION
XIII. LEARNING THE RIVER
XIV. RIVER DAYS
XV. THE WRECK OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA"
XVI. THE PILOT
XVII. THE END OF PILOTING
XVIII. THE SOLDIER
XIX. THE PIONEER
XX. THE MINER
XXI. THE TERRITORIAL ENTERPRISE
XXII. "MARK TWAIN"
XXIII. ARTEMUS WARD AND LITERARY SAN FRANCISCO
XXIV. THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG"
XXV. HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME
XXVI. MARK TWAIN, LECTURER
XXVII. AN INNOCENT ABROAD, AND HOME AGAIN
XXVIII. OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS"
XXIX. THE VISIT TO ELMIRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
XXX. THE NEW BOOK AND A WEDDING
XXXI. MARK TWAIN IN BUFFALO
XXXII. AT WORK ON "ROUGHING IT"
XXXIII. IN ENGLAND
XXXIV. A NEW BOOK AND NEW ENGLISH TRIUMPHS
XXXV. BEGINNING "TOM SAWYER"
XXXVI. THE NEW HOME
XXXVII. "OLD TIMES, "SKETCHES," AND "TOM SAWYER"
XXXVIII. HOME PICTURES
XXXIX. TRAMPING ABROAD
XL. "THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER"
XLI. GENERAL GRANT AT HARTFORD
XLII. MANY INVESTMENTS
XLIII. BACK TO THE RIVER, WITH BIXBY
XLIV. A READING-TOUR WITH CABLE
XLV. "THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN"
XLVI. PUBLISHER TO GENERAL GRANT
XLVII. THE HIGH-TIDE OF FORTUNE
XLVIII. BUSINESS DIFFICULTIES. PLEASANTER THINGS
XLIX. KIPLING AT ELMIRA. ELSIE LESLIE. THE "YANKEE"
L. THE MACHINE. GOOD-BY TO HARTFORD. "JOAN" IS BEGUN
LI. THE FAILURE OF WEBSTER & CO. AROUND THE WORLD. SORROW
LII. EUROPEAN ECONOMIES
LIII. MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS
LIV. RETURN AFTER EXILE
LV. A PROPHET AT HOME
LVI. HONORED BY MISSOURI
LVII. THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE
LVIII. MARK TWAIN AT SEVENTY
LIX. MARK TWAIN ARRANGES FOR HIS BIOGRAPHY
LX. WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN
LXI. DICTATIONS AT DUBLIN, N. H.
LXII. A NEW ERA OF BILLIARDS
LXIII. LIVING WITH MARK TWAIN
LXIV. A DEGREE FROM OXFORD
LXV. THE REMOVAL TO REDDING
LXVI. LIFE AT STORMFIELD
LXVII. THE DEATH OF JEAN
LXVIII. DAYS IN BERMUDA
LXIX. THE RETURN TO REDDING
LXX. THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE

PREFACE

This is the story of a boy, born in the humblest surroundings, reared almost without schooling, and amid benighted conditions such as to-day have no existence, yet who lived to achieve a world-wide fame; to attain honorary degrees from the greatest universities of America and Europe; to be sought by statesmen and kings; to be loved and honored by all men in all lands, and mourned by them when he died. It is the story of one of the world's very great men—the story of Mark Twain.

I.

THE FAMILY OF JOHN CLEMENS

A long time ago, back in the early years of another century, a family named Clemens moved from eastern Tennessee to eastern Missouri—from a small, unheard-of place called Pall Mall, on Wolf River, to an equally small and unknown place called Florida, on a tiny river named the Salt.

That was a far journey, in those days, for railway trains in 1835 had not reached the South and West, and John Clemens and his family traveled in an old two-horse barouche, with two extra riding-horses, on one of which rode the eldest child, Orion Clemens, a boy of ten, and on the other Jennie, a slave girl.

In the carriage with the parents were three other children—Pamela and Margaret, aged eight and five, and little Benjamin, three years old. The time was spring, the period of the Old South, and, while these youngsters did not realize that they were passing through a sort of Golden Age, they must have enjoyed the weeks of leisurely journeying toward what was then the Far West—the Promised Land.

The Clemens fortunes had been poor in Tennessee. John Marshall Clemens, the father, was a lawyer, a man of education; but he was a dreamer, too, full of schemes that usually failed. Born in Virginia, he had grown up in Kentucky, and married there Jane Lampton, of Columbia, a descendant of the English Lamptons and the belle of her region. They had left Kentucky for Tennessee, drifting from one small town to another that was always smaller, and with dwindling law-practice John Clemens in time had been obliged to open a poor little store, which in the end had failed to pay. Jennie was the last of several slaves he had inherited from his Virginia ancestors. Besides Jennie, his fortune now consisted of the horses and barouche, a very limited supply of money, and a large, unsalable tract of east Tennessee land, which John Clemens dreamed would one day bring his children fortune.

Readers of the "Gilded Age" will remember the journey of the Hawkins family from the "Knobs" of Tennessee to Missouri and the important part in that story played by the Tennessee land. Mark Twain wrote those chapters, and while they are not history, but fiction, they are based upon fact, and the picture they present of family hardship and struggle is not overdrawn. The character of Colonel Sellers, who gave the Hawkinses a grand welcome to the new home, was also real. In life he was James Lampton, cousin to Mrs. Clemens, a gentle and radiant merchant of dreams, who believed himself heir to an English earldom and was always on the verge of colossal fortune. With others of the Lampton kin, he was already settled in Missouri and had written back glowing accounts; though perhaps not more glowing than those which had come from another relative, John Quarles, brother-in-law to Mrs. Clemens, a jovial, whole-hearted optimist, well-loved by all who knew him.

It was a June evening when the Clemens family, with the barouche and the two outriders, finally arrived in Florida, and the place, no doubt, seemed attractive enough then, however it may have appeared later. It was the end of a long journey; relatives gathered with fond welcome; prospects seemed bright. Already John Quarles had opened a general store in the little town. Florida, he said, was certain to become a city. Salt River would be made navigable with a series of locks and dams. He offered John Clemens a partnership in his business.

Quarles, for that time and place, was a rich man. Besides his store he had a farm and