On their arrival in Hannibal, the Clemens family had moved into a part of
what was then the Pavey Hotel. They could not have remained there long,
for they moved twice within the next few years, and again in 1844 into a
new house which Judge Clemens, as he was generally called, had built
on Hill Street--a house still standing, and known to-day as the Mark
Twain home.
John Clemens had met varying fortunes in Hannibal. Neither commerce nor
the practice of law had paid. The office of justice of the peace, to
which he was elected, 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 saddest faces I ever saw."
Readers of Mark Twain's books--especially the stories of Huck and Tom,
will hardly be surprised to hear of these early happenings that formed so
large a portion of the author's early education. Sam, however, did not
regard them as education--not at the time. They got into his dreams. He
set them down as warnings, or punishments, intended to give him a taste
for a better life. He felt that it was his conscience that made such
things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a high
respect for her opinion in such matters. Among other things, he had seen
her one day defy a vicious and fierce Corsican--a common terror in the
town--who had chased his grown daughter with a heavy rope in his hand,
declaring he would wear it out on her. Cautious citizens got out of the
way, but Jane Clemens opened her door to the fugitive; then, instead of
rushing in and closing it, spread her arms across it, barring the way.
The man raved, and threatened her with the rope, but she did not flinch
or show any sign of fear. She stood there and shamed and defied him
until he slunk off, crestfallen and conquered. Any one as brave as his
mother must have a perfect conscience, Sam thought, and would know how to
take care of it. In the darkness he would say his prayers, especially
when a thunderstorm was coming, and vow to begin a better life. He
detested Sunday-school as much as he did day-school, and once his brother
Orion, who was moral and religious, had threatened to drag him there by
the collar, but, as the thunder got louder, Sam decided that he loved
Sunday-school and would go the next Sunday without being invited.
Sam's days were not all disturbed by fierce events. They were mostly
filled with pleasanter things. There were picnics sometimes, and
ferryboat excursions, and any day one could roam the woods, or fish,
alone or in company. The hills and woods around Hannibal were never
disappointing. There was the cave with its marvels. There was Bear
Creek, where he had learned to swim. He had seen two playmates drown;
twice, himself, he had been dragged ashore, more dead than alive; once by
a slave girl, another time by a slave man--Neal Champ, of the Pavey
Hotel. But he had persevered, and with success. He could swim better
than any playmate of his age.
It was the river that he cared for most. It was the pathway that led to
the great world outside. He would sit by it for hours and dream. He
would venture out on it in a quietly borrowed boat, when he was barely
strong enough to lift an oar. He learned to know all its moods and
phases.
More than anything in the world he hungered to make a trip on one of the
big, smart steamers that were always passing. "You can hardly imagine
what it meant," he reflected, once, "to a boy in those days, shut in as
we were, to see those steamboats pass up and down, and never take a trip
on them."
It was at the mature age of nine that he found he could endure this no
longer. One day when the big packet came down and stopped at Hannibal,
he slipped aboard and crept under one of the boats on the upper deck.
Then the signal-bells rang, the steamer backed away and swung into
midstream; he was really going at last. He crept from beneath the boat
and sat looking out over the water and enjoying the scenery. Then it
began to rain--a regular downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his
legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. He was dragged out and
at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of Louisiana, where there
were Lampton relatives, who took him home. Very likely the home-coming
was not entirely pleasant, though a "lesson," too, in his general
education.
And always, each summer, there was the farm, where his recreation was no
longer mere girl plays and swings, with a colored nurse following about,
but sports with his older boy cousins, who went hunting with the men, for
partridges by day and for 'coons and 'possums by night. Sometimes the
little boy followed the hunters all night long, and returned with them
through the sparkling and fragrant morning, fresh, hungry, and
triumphant, just in time for breakfast. So it is no wonder that Little
Sam, at nine, was no longer Little Sam, but plain Sam Clemens, and grown
up. If there were doubtful spots in his education--matters related to
smoking and strong words--it is also no wonder, and experience even in
these lines was worth something in a book like Tom Sawyer.
The boy Sam Clemens was not a particularly attractive lad. He was rather
undersized, and his head seemed too large for his body. He had a mass of
light sandy hair, which he plastered down to keep from curling. His eyes
were keen and blue and his features rather large. Still, he had a fair,
delicate complexion when it was not blackened by grime and tan; a gentle,
winning manner; a smile and a slow way of speaking that made him a
favorite with his companions. He did not talk much, and was thought to
be rather dull--was certainly so in most of his lessons--but, for some
reason, he never spoke that every playmate in hearing did not stop,
whatever he was doing, to listen. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new
game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a
casual remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. His mother always
referred to his slow fashion of speech as "Sammy's long talk." Her own
speech was even more deliberate, though she seemed not to notice it. Sam
was more like his mother than the others. His brother, Henry Clemens,
three years younger, was as unlike Sam as possible. He did not have the
"long talk," and was a handsome, obedient little fellow whom the
mischievous Sam loved to tease. Henry was to become the Sid of Tom
Sawyer, though he was in every way a finer character than Sid. With the
death of little Benjamin, Sam and Henry had been drawn much closer
together, and, in spite of Sam's pranks, loved each other dearly. For
the pranks were only occasional, and Sam's love for Henry was constant.
He fought for him oftener than with him.
Many of the home incidents in the Tom Sawyer book really happened. Sam
did clod Henry for getting him into trouble about the colored thread
with which he sewed his shirt when he came home from swimming; he did
inveigle a lot of boys into whitewashing a fence for him; he did give
painkiller to Peter, the cat. As for escaping punishment for his
misdeeds, as described in the book, this was a daily matter, and his
methods suited the occasions. For, of course, Tom Sawyer was Sam Clemens
himself, almost entirely, as most readers of that book have imagined.
However, we must have another chapter for Tom Sawyer and his doings--the
real Tom and his real doings with those graceless, lovable associates,
Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn.