The reference to “Auntie Cord” in the letter to Dr. Brown brings us to
Mark Twain's first contribution to the Atlantic Monthly. Howells in his
Recollections of his Atlantic editorship, after referring to certain
Western contributors, says:
Later came Mark Twain, originally of Missouri, but then
provisionally of Hartford, and now ultimately of the solar system,
not to say the universe. He came first with “A True Story,” one of
those noble pieces of humanity with which the South has atoned
chiefly, if not solely, through him for all its despite to the
negro.
Clemens had long aspired to appear in the Atlantic, but such was his own
rating of his literature that he hardly hoped to qualify for its pages.
Twichell remembers his “mingled astonishment and triumph” when he was
invited to send something to the magazine.
He was obliged to “send something” once or twice before the acceptance
of “A True Story,” the narrative of Auntie Cord, and even this
acceptance brought with it the return of a fable which had accompanied
it, with the explanation that a fable like that would disqualify the
magazine for every denominational reader, though Howells hastened to
express his own joy in it, having been particularly touched by the
author's reference to Sisyphus and Atlas as ancestors of the tumble-bug.
The “True Story,” he said, with its “realest king of black talk,” won
him, and a few days later he wrote again: “This little story delights me
more and more. I wish you had about forty of 'em.”
And so, modestly enough, as became him, for the story was of the
simplest, most unpretentious sort, Mark Twain entered into the school of
the elect.
In his letter to Howells, accompanying the MS., the author said:
I inclose also “A True Story,” which has no humor in it. You can
pay as lightly as you choose for that if you want it, for it is
rather out of my line. I have not altered the old colored woman's
story, except to begin it at the beginning, instead of the middle,
as she did--and traveled both ways.
Howells in his Recollections tells of the business anxiety in the
Atlantic office in the effort to estimate the story's pecuniary value.
Clemens and Harte had raised literary rates enormously; the latter was
reputed to have received as much as five cents a word from affluent
newspapers! But the Atlantic was poor, and when sixty dollars was
finally decided upon for the three pages (about two and a half cents a
word) the rate was regarded as handsome--without precedent in Atlantic
history. Howells adds that as much as forty times this amount was
sometimes offered to Mark Twain in later years. Even in '74 he had
received a much higher rate than that offered by the Atlantic,--but no
acceptance, then, or later, ever made him happier, or seemed more richly
rewarded.
“A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It” was precisely what
it claimed to be.--[Atlantic Monthly for November, 1874; also included
in Sketches New and Old.]--Auntie Cord, the Auntie Rachel of that tale,
cook at Quarry Farm, was a Virginia negress who had been twice sold as
a slave, and was proud of the fact; particularly proud that she had
brought $1,000 on the block. All her children had been sold away from
her, but it was a long time ago, and now at sixty she was fat and
seemingly without care. She had told her story to Mrs. Crane, who had
more than once tried to persuade her to tell it to Clemens; but Auntie
Cord was reluctant. One evening, however, when the family sat on the
front veranda in the moonlight, looking down on the picture city, as
was their habit, Auntie Cord came around to say good night, and Clemens
engaged her in conversation. He led up to her story, and almost before
she knew it she was seated at his feet telling the strange tale in
almost the exact words in which it was set down by him next morning.
It gave Mark Twain a chance to exercise two of his chief
gifts--transcription and portrayal. He was always greater at these
things than at invention. Auntie Cord's story is a little masterpiece.
He wished to do more with Auntie Cord and her associates of the farm,
for they were extraordinarily interesting. Two other negroes on the
place, John Lewis and his wife (we shall hear notably of Lewis later),
were not always on terms of amity with Auntie Cord. They disagreed
on religion, and there were frequent battles in the kitchen. These
depressed the mistress of the house, but they gave only joy to Mark
Twain. His Southern raising had given him an understanding of their
humors, their native emotions which made these riots a spiritual
gratification. He would slip around among the shrubbery and listen to
the noise and strife of battle, and hug himself with delight. Sometimes
they resorted to missiles--stones, tinware--even dressed poultry which
Auntie Cord was preparing for the oven. Lewis was very black, Auntie
Cord was a bright mulatto, Lewis's' wife several shades lighter.
Wherever the discussion began it promptly shaded off toward the
color-line and insult. Auntie Cord was a Methodist; Lewis was a
Dunkard. Auntie Cord was ignorant and dogmatic; Lewis could read and was
intelligent. Theology invariably led to personality, and eventually to
epithets, crockery, geology, and victuals. How the greatest joker of the
age did enjoy that summer warfare!
The fun was not all one-sided. An incident of that summer probably
furnished more enjoyment for the colored members of the household
than it did for Mark Twain. Lewis had some fowls, and among them was a
particularly pestiferous guinea-hen that used to get up at three in the
morning and go around making the kind of a noise that a guinea-hen must
like and is willing to get up early to hear. Mark Twain did not care for
it. He stood it as long as he could one morning, then crept softly from
the house to stop it.
It was a clear, bright night; locating the guinea-hen, he slipped up
stealthily with a stout stick. The bird was pouring out its heart,
tearing the moonlight to tatters. Stealing up close, Clemens made
a vicious swing with his bludgeon, but just then the guinea stepped
forward a little, and he missed. The stroke and his explosion frightened
the fowl, and it started to run. Clemens, with his mind now on the
single purpose of revenge, started after it. Around the trees, along the
paths, up and down the lawn, through gates and across the garden, out
over the fields, they raced, “pursuer and pursued.” The guinea nor
longer sang, and Clemens was presently too exhausted to swear. Hour
after hour the silent, deadly hunt continued, both stopping to rest at
intervals; then up again and away. It was like something in a dream.
It was nearly breakfast-time when he dragged himself into the house at
last, and the guinea was resting and panting under a currant-bush.
Later in the day Clemens gave orders to Lewis to “kill and eat that
guinea-hen,” which Lewis did. Clemens himself had then never eaten a
guinea, but some years later, in Paris, when the delicious breast of one
of those fowls was served him, he remembered and said:
“And to think, after chasing that creature all night, John Lewis got to
eat him instead of me.”
The interest in Tom and Huck, or the inspiration for their adventures,
gave out at last, or was superseded by a more immediate demand. As early
as May, Goodman, in San Francisco, had seen a play announced there,
presenting the character of Colonel Sellers, dramatized by Gilbert
S. Densmore and played by John T. Raymond. Goodman immediately wrote
Clemens; also a letter came from Warner, in Hartford, who had noticed in
San Francisco papers announcements of the play. Of course Clemens would
take action immediately; he telegraphed, enjoining the performance.
Then began a correspondence with the dramatist and actor. This in time
resulted in an amicable arrangement, by which the dramatist agreed
to dispose of his version to Clemens. Clemens did not wait for it to
arrive, but began immediately a version of his own. Just how much or
how little of Densmore's work found its way into the completed play,
as presented by Raymond later, cannot be known now. Howells conveys
the impression that Clemens had no hand in its authorship beyond the
character of Sellers as taken from the book. But in a letter still
extant, which Clemens wrote to Howells at the time, he says:
I worked a month on my play, and launched it in New York last
Wednesday. I believe it will go. The newspapers have been
complimentary. It is simply a setting for one character, Colonel
Sellers. As a play I guess it will not bear critical assault in
force.
The Warners are as charming as ever. They go shortly to the devil for a
year--that is, to Egypt.
Raymond, in a letter which he wrote to the Sun, November 3, 1874,
declared that “not one line” of Densmore's dramatization was used,
“except that which was taken bodily from The Gilded Age.” During the
newspaper discussion of the matter, Clemens himself prepared a letter
for the Hartford Post. This letter was suppressed, but it still exists.
In it he says:
I entirely rewrote the play three separate and distinct times. I
had expected to use little of his [Densmore's] language and but
little of his plot. I do not think there are now twenty sentences
of Mr. Densmore's in the play, but I used so much of his plot that I
wrote and told him that I should pay him about as much more as I had
already paid him in case the play proved a success. I shall keep my
word.
This letter, written while the matter was fresh in his mind, is
undoubtedly in accordance with the facts. That Densmore was fully
satisfied may be gathered from an acknowledgment, in which he says:
“Your letter reached me on the ad, with check. In this place permit me
to thank you for the very handsome manner in which you have acted in
this matter.”
Warner, meantime, realizing that the play was constructed almost
entirely of the Mark Twain chapters of the book, agreed that his
collaborator should undertake the work and financial responsibilities
of the dramatic venture and reap such rewards as might result. Various
stories have been told of this matter, most of them untrue. There was no
bitterness between the friends, no semblance of an estrangement of
any sort. Warner very generously and promptly admitted that he was not
concerned with the play, its authorship, or its profits, whatever the
latter might amount to. Moreover, Warner was going to Egypt very soon,
and his labors and responsibilities were doubly sufficient as they
stood.
Clemens's estimate of the play as a dramatic composition was correct
enough, but the public liked it, and it was a financial success from the
start. He employed a representative to travel with Raymond, to assist in
the management and in the division of spoil. The agent had instructions
to mail a card every day, stating the amount of his share in the
profits. Howells once arrived in Hartford just when this postal tide of
fortune was at its flood:
One hundred and fifty dollars--two hundred dollars--three hundred
dollars were the gay figures which they bore, and which he flaunted in
the air, before he sat down at the table, or rose from it to brandish,
and then, flinging his napkin in the chair, walked up and down to exult
in.
Once, in later years, referring to the matter, Howells said “He was
never a man who cared anything about money except as a dream, and he
wanted more and more of it to fill out the spaces of this dream.” Which
was a true word. Mark Twain with money was like a child with a heap of
bright pebbles, ready to pile up more and still more, then presently to
throw them all away and begin gathering anew.