The Boys Life of Mark Twain | Page 4

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