The Boys Life of Mark Twain | Page 9

returned a fair income, but his business losses
finally obliged him to sell Jennie, the slave girl. Somewhat later his
business failure was complete. He surrendered everything to his
creditors, even to his cow and household furniture, and relied upon his

law practice and justice fees. However, he seems to have kept the
Tennessee land, possibly because no one thought it worth taking. There
had been offers for it earlier, but none that its owner would accept. It
appears to have been not even considered by his creditors, though his
own faith in it never died.
The struggle for a time was very bitter. Orion Clemens, now seventeen,
had learned the printer's trade and assisted the family with his wages.
Mrs. Clemens took a few boarders. In the midst of this time of hardship
little Benjamin Clemens died. He was ten years old. It was the darkest
hour.
Then conditions slowly improved. There was more law practice and
better justice fees. By 1844 Judge Clemens was able to build the house
mentioned above--a plain, cheap house, but a shelter and a home. Sam
Clemens--he was hardly "Little Sam" any more--was at this time nine
years old. His boyhood had begun.
Heretofore he had been just a child--wild and mischievous, often
exasperating, but still a child--a delicate little lad to be worried over,
mothered, or spanked and put to bed. Now at nine he had acquired
health, with a sturdy ability to look out for himself, as boys in such a
community will. "Sam," as they now called him, was "grown up" at
nine and wise for his years. Not that he was old in spirit or manner--he
was never that, even to his death--but he had learned a great number of
things, many of them of a kind not taught at school.
He had learned a good deal of natural history and botany--the habits of
plants, insects, and animals. Mark Twain's books bear evidence of this
early study. His plants, bugs, and animals never do the wrong things.
He was learning a good deal about men, and this was often less
pleasant knowledge. Once Little Sam--he was still Little Sam then--saw
an old man shot down on Main Street at noon day. He saw them carry
him home, lay him on the bed, and spread on his breast an open family
Bible, which looked as heavy as an anvil. He thought if he could only
drag that great burden away the poor old dying man would not breathe
so heavily.

He saw a young emigrant stabbed with a bowie-knife by a drunken
comrade, and two young men try to kill their uncle, one holding him
while the other snapped repeatedly an Allen revolver, which failed to
go off. Then there was the drunken rowdy who proposed to raid the
"Welshman's" house, one sultry, threatening evening--he saw that, too.
With a boon companion, John Briggs, he followed at a safe distance
behind. A widow with her one daughter lived there. They stood in the
shadow of the dark porch; the man had paused at the gate to revile them.
The boys heard the mother's voice warning the intruder that she had a
loaded gun and would kill him if he stayed where he was. He replied
with a tirade, and she warned him that she would count ten--that if he
remained a second longer she would fire. She began slowly and
counted up to five, the man laughing and jeering. At six he grew silent,
but he did not go. She counted on: seven, eight, nine--
The boys, watching from the dark roadside, felt their hearts stop. There
was a long pause, then the final count, followed a second later by a
gush of flame. The man dropped, his breast riddled. At the same instant
the thunder-storm that had been gathering broke loose. The boys fled
wildly, believing that Satan himself had arrived to claim the lost soul.
That was a day and locality of violent impulse and sudden action.
Happenings such as these were not infrequent in a town like Hannibal.
And there were events connected with slavery. Sam once saw a slave
struck down and killed with a piece of slag, for a trifling offense. He
saw an Abolitionist attacked by a mob that would have lynched him
had not a Methodist minister defended him on a plea that he must be
crazy. He did not remember in later years that he had ever seen a slave
auction, but he added:
"I am suspicious that it was because the thing was a commonplace
spectacle and not an uncommon or impressive one. I do vividly
remember seeing a dozen black men and women, chained together,
lying in a group on the pavement, waiting shipment to a Southern
slave- market. They had the