Twains Letters vol 4 1886-1900 | Page 4

Warner and Clemens families
had joined in preparing for him a surprise performance of The Prince
and the Pauper. The Clemens household was always given to
theatricals, and it was about this time that scenery and a stage were
prepared--mainly by the sculptor Gerhardt--for these home
performances, after which productions of The Prince and the Pauper
were given with considerable regularity to audiences consisting of
parents and invited friends. The subject is a fascinating one, but it has
been dwelt upon elsewhere.--[In Mark Twain: A Biography, chaps.
cliff and clx.]--We get a glimpse of one of these occasions as well as of
Mark Twain's financial progress in the next brief note.
To W. D. Howells; in Boston:
Jan. 3, '86. MY DEAR HOWELLS,--The date set for the Prince and
Pauper play is ten days hence--Jan. 13. I hope you and Pilla can take a
train that arrives here during the day; the one that leaves Boston toward
the end of the afternoon would be a trifle late; the performance would
have already begun when you reached the house.
I'm out of the woods. On the last day of the year I had paid out
$182,000 on the Grant book and it was totally free from debt. Yrs ever
MARK.
Mark Twain's mother was a woman of sturdy character and with a keen
sense of humor and tender sympathies. Her husband, John Marshall
Clemens, had been a man of high moral character, honored by all who
knew him, respected and apparently loved by his wife. No one would
ever have supposed that during all her years of marriage, and almost to
her death, she carried a secret romance that would only be told at last in
the weary disappointment of old age. It is a curious story, and it came
to light in this curious way:
To W. D. Howells, in Boston:
HARTFORD, May 19, '86. MY DEAR HOWELLS,--..... Here's a
secret. A most curious and pathetic romance, which has just come to
light. Read these things, but don't mention them. Last fall, my old
mother--then 82--took a notion to attend a convention of old settlers of
the Mississippi Valley in an Iowa town. My brother's wife was
astonished; and represented to her the hardships and fatigues of such a
trip, and said my mother might possibly not even survive them; and

said there could be no possible interest for her in such a meeting and
such a crowd. But my mother insisted, and persisted; and finally gained
her point. They started; and all the way my mother was young again
with excitement, interest, eagerness, anticipation. They reached the
town and the hotel. My mother strode with the same eagerness in her
eye and her step, to the counter, and said:
"Is Dr. Barrett of St. Louis, here?"
"No. He was here, but he returned to St. Louis this morning."
"Will he come again?"
"No."
My mother turned away, the fire all gone from her, and said, "Let us go
home."
They went straight back to Keokuk. My mother sat silent and thinking
for many days--a thing which had never happened before. Then one
day she said:
"I will tell you a secret. When I was eighteen, a young medical student
named Barrett lived in Columbia (Ky.) eighteen miles away; and he
used to ride over to see me. This continued for some time. I loved him
with my whole heart, and I knew that he felt the same toward me,
though no words had been spoken. He was too bashful to speak--he
could not do it. Everybody supposed we were engaged--took it for
granted we were--but we were not. By and by there was to be a party in
a neighboring town, and he wrote my uncle telling him his feelings, and
asking him to drive me over in his buggy and let him (Barrett) drive me
back, so that he might have that opportunity to propose. My uncle
should have done as he was asked, without explaining anything to me;
but instead, he read me the letter; and then, of course, I could not
go--and did not. He (Barrett) left the country presently, and I, to stop
the clacking tongues, and to show him that I did not care, married, in a
pet. In all these sixty-four years I have not seen him since. I saw in a
paper that he was going to attend that Old Settlers' Convention. Only
three hours before we reached that hotel, he had been standing there!"
Since then, her memory is wholly faded out and gone; and now she
writes letters to the school-mates who had been dead forty years, and
wonders why they neglect her and do not answer.
Think of her carrying that pathetic burden in her old heart sixty-four
years, and