Nevertheless, on his return to Hannibal, it was decided that Little
Sam was now ready to go to school. He was about five years old, and
the months on the farm had left him wiry and lively, even if not very
robust. His mother declared that he gave her more trouble than all the
other children put together.
“He drives me crazy with his didoes, when he is in the house,” she used
to say; “and when he is out of it I am expecting every minute that some
one will bring him home half dead.”
He did, in fact, achieve the first of his “nine narrow escapes from
drowning” about this time, and was pulled out of the river one afternoon
and brought home in a limp and unpromising condition. When with mullein
tea and castor-oil she had restored him to activity, she said: “I guess
there wasn't much danger. People born to be hanged are safe in water.”
She declared she was willing to pay somebody to take him off her hands
for a part of each day and try to teach him manners. Perhaps this is
a good place to say that Jane Clemens was the original of Tom Sawyer's
“Aunt Polly,” and her portrait as presented in that book is considered
perfect. Kind-hearted, fearless, looking and acting ten years older
than her age, as women did in that time, always outspoken and sometimes
severe, she was regarded as a “character” by her friends, and beloved by
them as, a charitable, sympathetic woman whom it was good to know. Her
sense of pity was abnormal. She refused to kill even flies, and punished
the cat for catching mice. She, would drown the young kittens, when
necessary, but warmed the water for the purpose. On coming to Hannibal,
she joined the Presbyterian Church, and her religion was of that
clean-cut, strenuous kind which regards as necessary institutions hell
and Satan, though she had been known to express pity for the latter for
being obliged to surround himself with such poor society. Her children
she directed with considerable firmness, and all were tractable and
growing in grace except Little Sam. Even baby Henry at two was lisping
the prayers that Sam would let go by default unless carefully guarded.
His sister Pamela, who was eight years older and always loved him
dearly, usually supervised these spiritual exercises, and in her gentle
care earned immortality as the Cousin Mary of Tom Sawyer. He would say
his prayers willingly enough when encouraged by sister Pamela, but he
much preferred to sit up in bed and tell astonishing tales of the day's
adventure--tales which made prayer seem a futile corrective and caused
his listeners to wonder why the lightning was restrained so long. They
did not know they were glimpsing the first outcroppings of a genius
that would one day amaze and entertain the nations. Neighbors hearing
of these things (also certain of his narrations) remonstrated with Mrs.
Clemens.
“You don't believe anything that child says, I hope.”
“Oh yes, I know his average. I discount him ninety per cent. The rest is
pure gold.” At another time she said: “Sammy is a well of truth, but you
can't bring it all up in one bucket.”
This, however, is digression; the incidents may have happened somewhat
later.
A certain Miss E. Horr was selected to receive the payment for taking
charge of Little Sam during several hours each day, directing him
mentally and morally in the mean time. Her school was then in a log
house on Main Street (later it was removed to Third Street), and was of
the primitive old-fashioned kind, with pupils of all ages, ranging in
advancement from the primer to the third reader, from the tables to
long division, with a little geography and grammar and a good deal of
spelling. Long division and the third reader completed the curriculum in
that school. Pupils who decided to take a post-graduate course went to
a Mr. Cross, who taught in a frame house on the hill facing what is now
the Public Square.
Miss Horr received twenty-five cents a week for each pupil, and opened
her school with prayer; after which came a chapter of the Bible, with
explanations, and the rules of conduct. Then the A B C class was
called, because their recital was a hand-to-hand struggle, requiring no
preparation.
The rules of conduct that first day interested Little Sam. He calculated
how much he would need to trim in, to sail close to the danger-line and
still avoid disaster. He made a miscalculation during the forenoon and
received warning; a second offense would mean punishment. He did not
mean to be caught the second time, but he had not learned Miss Horr
yet, and was presently startled by being commanded to go out and bring a
stick for his own correction.
This was certainly disturbing. It was sudden, and then he did not know
much about the selection of sticks. Jane Clemens had usually used
her hand. It required a second command to get him headed in the right
direction, and he was a trifle dazed when he got outside. He had the
forests of Missouri to select from, but choice was difficult. Everything
looked too big and competent. Even the smallest switch had a wiry,
discouraging look. Across the way was a cooper-shop with a good many
shavings outside.
One had blown across and lay just in front of him. It was an
inspiration. He picked it up and, solemnly entering the school-room,
meekly handed it to Miss Herr.
Perhaps Miss Horr's sense of humor prompted forgiveness, but discipline
must be maintained.
“Samuel Langhorne Clemens,” she said (he had never heard it all strung
together in that ominous way), “I am ashamed of you! Jimmy Dunlap, go
and bring a switch for Sammy.” And Jimmy Dunlap went, and the switch was
of a sort to give the little boy an immediate and permanent distaste for
school. He informed his mother when he went home at noon that he did
not care for school; that he had no desire to be a great man; that he
preferred to be a pirate or an Indian and scalp or drown such people as
Miss Horr. Down in her heart his mother was sorry for him, but what she
said was that she was glad there was somebody at last who could take him
in hand.
He returned to school, but he never learned to like it. Each morning he
went with reluctance and remained with loathing--the loathing which
he always had for anything resembling bondage and tyranny or even the
smallest curtailment of liberty. A School was ruled with a rod in those
days, a busy and efficient rod, as the Scripture recommended. Of the
smaller boys Little Sam's back was sore as often as the next, and he
dreamed mainly of a day when, grown big and fierce, he would descend
with his band and capture Miss Horr and probably drag her by the hair,
as he had seen Indians and pirates do in the pictures. When the days of
early summer came again; when from his desk he could see the sunshine
lighting the soft green of Holliday's Hill, with the purple distance
beyond, and the glint of the river, it seemed to him that to be shut up
with a Webster's spelling-book and a cross old maid was more than human
nature could bear. Among the records preserved from that far-off day
there remains a yellow slip, whereon in neat old-fashioned penmanship is
inscribed: