There comes a period now of nearly four years, when Samuel Clemens
was either a poor correspondent or his letters have not been
preserved. Only two from this time have survived--happily of
intimate biographical importance.
Young Clemens had not remained in Muscatine. His brother had no
inducements to offer, and he presently returned to St. Louis, where
he worked as a compositor on the Evening News until the following
spring, rooming with a young man named Burrough, a journeyman
chair-maker with a taste for the English classics. Orion Clemens,
meantime, on a trip to Keokuk, had casually married there, and a
little later removed his office to that city. He did not move the
paper; perhaps it did not seem worth while, and in Keokuk he
confined himself to commercial printing. The Ben Franklin Book and
Job Office started with fair prospects. Henry Clemens and a boy
named Dick Hingham were the assistants, and somewhat later, when
brother Sam came up from St. Louis on a visit, an offer of five
dollars a week and board induced him to remain. Later, when it
became increasingly difficult to pay the five dollars, Orion took
his brother into partnership, which perhaps relieved the financial
stress, though the office methods would seem to have left something
to be desired. It is about at this point that the first of the two
letters mentioned was written. The writer addressed it to his
mother and sister--Jane Clemens having by this time taken up her
home with her daughter, Mrs. Moffett.
To Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
KEOKUK, Iowa, June 10th, 1856.
MY DEAR MOTHER & SISTER,--I have nothing to write. Everything is
going on well. The Directory is coming on finely. I have to work on it
occasionally, which I don't like a particle I don't like to work at too
many things at once. They take Henry and Dick away from me too. Before
we commenced the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how much
work could be done during the day, and manage accordingly--but now,
they throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their
work. I have nothing to do with the book--if I did I would have the two
book hands do more work than they do, or else I would drop it. It is
not a mere supposition that they do not work fast enough--I know it; for
yesterday the two book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all
the afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and
a half--and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after
supper, night before last, and I don't work fast on such things. They
are either excessively slow motioned or very lazy. I am not getting
along well with the job work. I can't work blindly--without system. I
gave Dick a job yesterday, which I calculated he would set in two hours
and I could work off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper
time, but he was transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised
this morning, remains untouched. Through all the great pressure of job
work lately, I never before failed in a promise of the kind.