The terms of Samuel Clemens's apprenticeship were the usual thing for
that day: board and clothes--"more board than clothes, and not much of
either," Mark Twain used to say.
"I was supposed to get two suits of clothes a year, but I didn't get
them. I got one suit and took the rest out in Ament's old garments,
which didn't fit me in any noticeable way. I was only about half as big
as he was, and when I had on one of his shirts I felt as if I had on a
circus-tent. I had to turn the trousers up to my ears to make them short
enough."
Another apprentice, a huge creature, named Wales McCormick, was so large
that Ament's clothes were much too small for him. The two apprentices,
fitted out with their employer's cast-off garments, were amusing enough,
no doubt. Sam and Wales ate in the kitchen at first, but later at the
family table with Mr. and Mrs. Ament and Pet McMurry, a journeyman
printer. McMurry was a happy soul, as one could almost guess from his
name. He had traveled far and learned much. What the two apprentices
did not already know, Pet McMurry could teach them. Sam Clemens had
promised to be a good boy, and he was so, by the standards of boyhood.
He was industrious, regular at his work, quick to learn, kind, and
truthful. Angels could hardly be more than that in a printing-office.
But when food was scarce, even an angel--a young printer-angel--could
hardly resist slipping down the cellar stairs at night, for raw potatoes,
onions, and apples, which they cooked in the office, where the boys slept
on a pallet on the floor. Wales had a wonderful way of cooking a potato
which his fellow apprentice never forgot.
How one wishes for a photograph of Sam Clemens at that period! But in
those days there were only daguerreotypes, and they were expensive
things. There is a letter, though, written long afterward, by Pet
McMurry to Mark Twain, which contains this paragraph:
"If your memory extends so far back, you will recall a little sandy-
haired boy of nearly a quarter of a century ago, in the printing-
office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham drug-store, mounted upon a
little box at the case, who used to love to sing so well the
expression of the poor drunken man who was supposed to have fallen
by the wayside, 'If ever I get up again, I'll stay up--if I kin.'"
And with this portrait we must be content--we cannot doubt its truth.
Sam was soon office favorite and in time became chief stand-by. When he
had been at work a year, he could set type accurately, run the job press
to the tune of "Annie Laurie," and he had charge of the circulation.
That is to say, he carried the papers--a mission of real importance, for
a long, sagging span of telegraph-wire had reached across the river to
Hannibal, and Mexican-war news delivered hot from the front gave the
messenger a fine prestige.
He even did editing, of a kind. That is to say, when Ament was not in
the office and copy was needed, Sam hunted him up, explained the
situation, and saw that the necessary matter was produced. He was not
ambitious to write--not then. He wanted to be a journeyman printer, like
Pet, and travel and see the world. Sometimes he thought he would like to
be a clown, or "end man" in a minstrel troupe. Once for a week he served
as subject for a traveling hypnotist-and was dazzled by his success.
But he stuck to printing, and rapidly became a neat, capable workman.
Ament gave him a daily task, after which he was free. By three in the
afternoon he was likely to finish his stint. Then he was off for the
river or the cave, joining his old comrades. Or perhaps he would go with
Laura Hawkins to gather wild columbine on the high cliff above the river,
known as Lover's Leap. When winter came these two sometimes went to
Bear Creek, skating; or together they attended parties, where the
old-fashioned games "Ring-around-Rosy" and "Dusty Miller" were the chief
amusements.
In "The Gilded Age," Laura Hawkins at twelve is pictured "with her dainty
hands propped into the ribbon-bordered pockets of her apron . . . a
vision to warm the coldest heart and bless and cheer the saddest." That
was the real Laura, though her story in that book in no way resembles the
reality.
It was just at this time that an incident occurred which may be looked
back upon now as a turning-point in Samuel Clemens's life. Coming home
from the office one afternoon, he noticed a square of paper being swept
along by the wind. He saw that it was printed--was interested
professionally in seeing what it was like. He chased the flying scrap
and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and
pictured the hard lot of the "maid" in the tower at Rouen, reviled and
mistreated by her ruffian captors. There were some paragraphs of
description, but the rest was pitiful dialogue.
Sam had never heard of Joan before--he knew nothing of history. He was
no reader. Orion was fond of books, and Pamela; even little Henry had
read more than Sam. But now, as he read, there awoke in him a deep
feeling of pity and indignation, and with it a longing to know more of
the tragic story. It was an interest that would last his life through,
and in the course of time find expression in one of the rarest books ever
written.
The first result was that Sam began to read. He hunted up everything he
could find on the subject of Joan, and from that went into French history
in general--indeed, into history of every kind. Samuel Clemens had
suddenly become a reader--almost a student. He even began the study of
languages, German and Latin, but was not able to go on for lack of time
and teachers.
He became a hater of tyranny, a champion of the weak. Watching a game of
marbles or tops, he would remark to some offender, in his slow drawling
way, "You mustn't cheat that boy."
And the cheating stopped, or trouble followed.