How to Tell a Story and other Essays, 1899 | Page 9

I
couldn't even send a telegram to London to get my lost letter replaced;
my hotel bill was a week old, and the presentation of it imminent--so
imminent that it could happen at any moment now. I was so frightened
that my wits seemed to leave me. I tramped and tramped, back and
forth, like a crazy person. If anybody approached me I hurried away,
for no matter what a person looked like, I took him for the head waiter
with the bill.
"I was at last in such a desperate state that I was ready to do any wild
thing that promised even the shadow of help, and so this is the insane
thing that I did. I saw a family lunching at a small table on the veranda,
and recognized their nationality--Americans--father, mother, and
several young daughters--young, tastefully dressed, and pretty--the rule
with our people. I went straight there in my civilian costume, named
my name, said I was a lieutenant in the army, and told my story and
asked for help.
"What do you suppose the gentleman did? But you would not guess in
twenty years. He took out a handful of gold coin and told me to help
myself--freely. That is what he did."
The next morning the lieutenant told me his new letter of credit had
arrived in the night, so we strolled to Cook's to draw money to pay
back the benefactor with. We got it, and then went strolling through the
great arcade. Presently he said, "Yonder they are; come and be
introduced." I was introduced to the parents and the young ladies; then
we separated, and I never saw him or them any m---
"Here we are at Farmington," said Twichell, interrupting.
We left the trolley-car and tramped through the mud a hundred yards or

so to the school, talking about the time we and Warner walked out there
years ago, and the pleasant time we had.
We had a visit with my niece in the parlor, then started for the trolley
again. Outside the house we encountered a double rank of twenty or
thirty of Miss Porter's young ladies arriving from a walk, and we stood
aside, ostensibly to let them have room to file past, but really to look at
them. Presently one of them stepped out of the rank and said:
"You don't know me, Mr. Twichell; but I know your daughter, and that
gives me the privilege of shaking hands with you."
Then she put out her hand to me, and said:
"And I wish to shake hands with you too, Mr. Clemens. You don't
remember me, but you were introduced to me in the arcade in Milan
two years and a half ago by Lieutenant H."
What had put that story into my head after all that stretch of time? Was
it just the proximity of that young girl, or was it merely an odd
accident?

THE INVALID'S STORY
I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due to my condition and
sufferings, for I am a bachelor, and only forty-one. It will be hard for
you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, was a hale, hearty
man two short years ago, a man of iron, a very athlete!--yet such is the
simple truth. But stranger still than this fact is the way in which I lost
my health. I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns on a
two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's night. It is the actual
truth, and I will tell you about it.
I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter's night, two years ago, I
reached home just after dark, in a driving snow-storm, and the first
thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood
friend and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day before, and
that his last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains
home to his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly
shocked and grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions; I
must start at once. I took the card, marked "Deacon Levi Hackett,
Bethlehem, Wisconsin," and hurried off through the whistling storm to
the railway station. Arrived there I found the long white-pine box
which had been described to me; I fastened the card to it with some

tacks, saw it put safely aboard the express car, and then ran into the
eating-room to provide myself with a sandwich and some cigars. When
I returned, presently, there was my coffin-box back again, apparently,
and a young fellow examining around it, with a card in his hands, and
some tacks and a hammer! I was astonished and puzzled. He began to
nail on his